


To Trip is Just to Fall

by catwalksalone



Category: A Knight's Tale (2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Development, Developing Relationship, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:15:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 63,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2193186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catwalksalone/pseuds/catwalksalone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1974. Wat Fowlehurst, almost sixteen years old and kicking himself out of an education system that was never on his side, finds himself on a collision course that'll change his life forever.</p><p>(See notes for content information.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: This story is complete at 63000+ words but will be posted in 10 parts (2 per week) so there's a choice whether to read it in chunks or wait until it's all up. Best of both worlds! It would never have been written without the enthusiasm and cheerleading from nny, soupytwist, brynnmck and some lovely anons who will remain nameless mostly because I don't know their names. I can't thank them enough. Further thanks are due to soupytwist for beta duties on this monster. <3
> 
> Content notes: This fic will contain sexual scenes between two people who are over the current UK age of consent (16), but under the age of consent in context of the fic (21) as well as in countries where the age of consent is 18. There are also scenes of homophobia including moderate violence and slurs.

When Wat was five, he smashed Geraint Williams over the head with a _Thomas the Tank Engine_ omnibus and was declared unteachable by Mrs Selby. If Wat had known what unteachable meant, he would have agreed that yes, he did not want to be taught by Mrs Selby, thank you very much. She had sharp elbows, smelled of hairspray with a faint overlay of cabbage and had a smile that had far too many teeth.

It was a downhill slide all the way after that. By ten Wat was firmly entrenched in "Remedial Class" or "Stupid Kids" as everyone else called it. They did things like learn how to tie shoelaces and to play the recorder, though not at the same time because, duh, stupid. And there was the small problem of only being in possession of two hands. Wat could read and write and that, but most of the time he didn't bother because some of the other kids could barely remember their names, let alone write them down, and there was only so much teacher time to go round.

So he didn't learn much, except for how many squares of carpet tile there were between the doorway to the hall and the Head's office. See, it was okay if he called his class the DumDums or Thickies or whatever, but it wasn't okay if _they_ did it—the kids in the everyday classes. And it really wasn't okay if they called Jennifer Morris "monger" or "spacker". She was a sweet kid and would never fight back. Wat wasn't, and would. This was what punches to the face were invented for. Wat's knuckles got tougher and the time he spent in the chair outside Mr Yates's room got longer. He taught himself times tables off those carpet squares, all the way up to elevens. The day they got replaced by coconut matting he punched a couple of extra kids on the way home for good luck and refused to go back the next day. 

By fifteen, Wat had his own Educational Welfare Officer, an intimate knowledge of escape routes from every comp in the borough, a permanent seat at the Pupil Referral Unit, and a best friend called Roland, who'd got bullied out of school for being a bit fat, liking girly stuff like sewing and forgetting to pronounce the invisible r in bath. Wat had offered to smash some heads together on his behalf, but Roland had said no, it was fine. He liked it at the PRU better anyway because they had a beauty of a Singer sewing machine and gave him free rein on it if he got all his work done.

"My birthday next week," Wat said to Roland as they biked home. "Four more days of this shithole left."

"You're not still going on about that? You can't leave now, what about exams?"

Wat made a scornful noise. "What would I want with exams? What am I gonna get anyway? F F F F U? I don't need to answer stupid questions for that." He grinned. "EFF YOU!" he yelled as he put the hammer down and sped up the road, looking back over his shoulder at Roland. "Here, let my fingers do the talking!" He flicked the Vs and Roland's eyes widened.

"Look out!" he shouted, but it was too late. 

Wat turned just in time to see the horrified look on a stranger's face as their bikes collided in a screech of twisting metal. His own machine slid from under him, throwing him sideways onto the road, loose tarmac tearing his clothes and scrubbing his skin raw. His shoulder met the ground with a sickening crunch and he managed to tack on a grunted, "Fuck me," to his forced outward breath before the world inexplicably turned black and he fainted.

He came to to a persistent, "Wat, Wat, Wat, Wat," accompanied by frantic tapping at his face. Automatically, Wat's hand went up to grab Roland's wrist and he clenched his jaw against the searing pain that flared through his shoulder. He opened his eyes.

Roland crouched over him, pale and sweaty, the tightness of his lips relaxing a little as he realised Wat was conscious. "You're not dead!" he said. "Good job!"

"Good job?" said a disdainful voice from somewhere up high. "Oh, yes, good job not watching the road. My bike's a mess and I've only had it a month. Great job there." 

Wat couldn't see who the voice belonged to, but it was obviously a dick. He tried to sit up. The pain shot through him again and he yelped, hating himself for showing weakness in front of a total stranger. 

"Bloody hell, Wat, what have you done to yourself?" Roland's lips tightened again.

"'M okay," said Wat. "Just help me up will you?"

"Got a stutter have you?" said the stranger, hoving into the periphery of Wat's view as Roland bent forward and tried to slip an arm around Wat's back.

Wat yelped again and the stranger dropped to his haunches. "Here, let me help."

"A stutter?" asked Roland.

"I think he's done his collarbone," said the stranger. "What's his name?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"Yes. Have you two met, like?"

"Only in the loosest sense." The stranger drew his eyebrows down in puzzlement. "Look, what's _your_ name?"

"No, it's not. Wat's his name."

"What?"

"Right. Glad that's sorted."

"I don't…what's sorted?"

"I don't think he is. Come on, give us a hand to get him up."

Wat giggled. He wouldn't usually, but what with the pain and the windup, it seemed like the best thing to do. Between them, the stranger and Roland got Wat into a sitting position and then to the relative safety of the pavement. Every jolt was agony across his shoulder and now Wat was beginning to get other signals, too, from parts of his body that obviously felt neglected in this whole pain thing. Pain, lots of pain. 

"Roland," said Wat, choosing his words carefully, "If you don't move your feet they're gonna get covered in puke." The scuffed shoes that swam in Wat's vision moved swiftly out of the way and Wat leant forward and threw up. It didn't make him feel any better and he groaned with unhappiness, the lots of pain refusing to do the decent thing and fuck right off.

"I think he needs to go to hospital," said the stranger from closer than Wat expected. 

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Roland's voice was sharp with an edge that Wat knew was put there by fear and not nastiness. 

"There's a phone box up the road about half a mile," said the stranger. "I could walk it, but I'm a little beaten up myself and it would be faster on a bike and yours is the only one in working order. I can give you the money if you haven't any."

"999 is free, actually, Mr Money Bags," Roland pointed out, squatting down beside Wat, well out of the way of the neat pile of vomit. "Wat, I've got to go and phone an ambulance, but I'll be back right quick, okay?"

Wat nodded and immediately regretted it. He held in the whimper that was threatening to escape by the skin of his teeth. He heard Roland clatter away on his bike and then there were the two of them. They sat in silence for a few seconds, which suited Wat just fine, but then,

"What _is_ your name?"

"Yes," said Wat, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face.

"Don't start that again," said the stranger, "Your name can't possibly be Y…oh."

"Oh?"

" _What's_ your name? Your name is Wat. Nicely done. I'm rather fond of wordplay myself. My name's Geoffrey, by the way."

"Geoffrey? What kind of poncey name is Geoffrey?" With concerted effort, Wat turned and took a proper look at the stranger for the first time. He was a boy of about the same age as Wat. Same height, too, seated at least. There was a streak of dirt across one cheek and the dark blue blazer he wore was caked with mud down one side, half-obscuring the badge that made Wat's lip twist with scorn. This Geoffrey was a St. Thomas' boy. It fit. His blond hair flopped over one eye in that timeless uniform of posh, public school twats everywhere. Wat made up his mind to hate him. 

"The kind my parents gave me? And here's you without a literal and metaphorical leg to stand on, _Wat_."

Wat bristled. "My folks are socialists. Fuck you."

Geoffrey put his hands up in surrender. "Don't get your knickers in a twist. It won't help the paramedics if they have to cut them off."

It was almost a soothing feeling, the anger bubbling up inside him. At least it took his mind off the constant messages of pain the rest of his body was sending. Wat's fists clenched at his sides and it was only the sure and certain knowledge that lifting them even the smallest amount would cause him to keel over and maybe never get back up that he didn't punch Geoffrey in his smug little smile right that second.

"Piss off, why don't you?" he said. "You already broke my bones, ain't that enough?"

Geoffrey shrugged. "You broke my bicycle. I admit it hardly seems like a fair exchange, but your bones will knit by the miracle of nature and my bike will need a miracle if I'm ever to ride it again, so it probably evens out."

The pain was fogging Wat's brain, but even in a muddled state he could see that wasn't quite right. "Hang on just a minute," he said. "You crashed into me."

"Far be it from me to hit a man who's already down, but no. The crashee was most definitely me. You weren't looking. You weren't even on the right side of the road. I'm sorry, but that's how it was. You can ask your friend if you don't believe me."

Well, that tore a hole through that theory, didn't it? And now Wat remembered everything, including the impact as he hit the ground. He winced.

"Sorry," he said. "It's not like I meant to, if that's any help."

Geoff's eyebrows shot up. "You're admitting it? Just like that?"

"What did you expect?" Wat had never been one for shifting blame. If you were going to fuck someone up, do it in front of an audience and maybe get an extra day or so of peace for your trouble. Lying was for people who could afford it.

Geoff's mouth opened and then shut again, obviously thinking better of what he was going to say. Just as well, Wat thought, because broken collarbone or no, he'd've found a way to punch him in the face if the posh git had tried to insinuate anything about Wat's honour, such as it was. His moral compass might be a little dinted and wonky, but it worked, after a fashion.

"Look. I'll come by and fix it up for you, if you like. After I've fixed myself up, though, yeah?" Wat said it just for the look on the other boy's face. It was worth it. Flabbergasted, his mum had said that time his dad rolled home from the pub with half a dead cow and a grocer's dozen of toilet rolls in tow. Her expression then was a close match to Geoff's now. It made Wat grin and forget the pain for a split second. Of course, the swift movement jolted the injured bone and the grin turned into a grimace.

"Fucking hell," Wat said, fingers scrabbling at the pavement like he was plucking at the edges of consciousness that were threatening to melt away from him. The world slipped to an odd angle and then slowly, gently righted itself again as Geoff shuffled closer and braced himself along Wat's side.

"Don't fret over my misfortunes," he said. "I can see your friend coming back. The ambulance will be here soon and you'll be right as rain in a lamb's shake, as my grandfather used to say. Not sure what the lamb was shaking, but somehow I don't think that's the point. Perhaps we can renegotiate when you're better. It's not as if I can fix it myself in the meantime. I've no allowance left and Father won't spot me a loan after the incident at the Bottomley's garden party, so you're it, I'm afraid."

"You talk too much," mumbled Wat, staring into nothing and wondering why it had so many holes. 

"I know." Geoff sounded unreasonably chirpy. "I haven't decided if it's a blessing or a curse. You won't be surprised to learn some people have already formed their own opinions, I'm sure."

Wat considered snorting, but it wasn't worth the potential agony.

There was a squeal of uncared for brakes as Roland drew to a stop beside them, squatting down in front of Wat. 

"They'll be here soon." He glanced over at Geoff. "You can go now if you like. I've got him."

"I'll wait," said Geoff, cheerful in the face of Roland's scowl. "I like to see things through."

"I'll bet you do," Roland muttered darkly, and it made no sense at all to Wat.

When the ambulance arrived there were a lot of questions and movement that seemed designed to hurt Wat in every way that was possible and then invent some more ways on top of that. In the confusion, Wat barely registered the hand slipping something into his pocket and then he was lifted up, the doors closed and the ambulance pulled away.

Roland's face loomed in Wat's vision. "Well, I'm not telling your mum," he said.

***


	2. Chapter 2

The first week Wat slept upright in the faded armchair that was usually the exclusive property of his dad, given over to him with begrudging concern and muttered deprecations about how people stupid enough to break bits of themselves should reap what they sow. Wat wasn't so stupid he didn't see who tugged the blanket back over him when it slipped, though. He woke up to the snow on the telly and his dad's well-worn slippers wedged under his arse. He passed his birthday and the end of his school career in a haze of everything hurts too much to summon up any enthusiasm. It took two weeks for the sling to come off and another two before he could reach into the kitchen cupboard where his mum hid the cooking chocolate behind the boxes of suet and cornflour. 

"You'll never bowl for England," Kate said, diving sideways for the apple he tossed at her, but Wat gave exactly no shits. Cricket was a game for ponces, wasn't it?

Kate was not Wat's girlfriend, no matter how much his mum liked to wink and grin and sing song her name every time he mentioned her. She was a good laugh, pretty, too, and Wat wouldn't cross her, not knowing what she did with the hammer and the circular saw when the grammar refused to let her take Metalwork O-level, but she wasn't his type. She could have been, maybe, if he put some effort into thinking about it, but he wasn't even a blip on her potential boyfriend radar so why bother? 

"Got any chocolate?" asked Roland, who would have you believe he was never fed except for scraps from his mates and their gullible mums. Either he was a horrible liar or the best scrounger Wat had ever met.

Wat reached into his pocket where he thought he'd stashed half a KitKat earlier. His fingers closed around a folded scrap of paper and he pulled it out, vaguely hopeful that it was a forgotten pound note. To his mild disappointment it wasn't. Instead it was a page torn from a notebook, with the name 'Geoff' written in a looping hand and a scrawled number next to it. 

"Oh, bugger me backwards," said Wat.

"Not equipped," said Kate through a mouthful of apple.

"What?"

Wat waved the piece of paper in the air. "Gotta make a phone call," he said. "I gave my word, didn't I?" And how could he fetch it back again unless he went straight to the source? 

He swore when his finger slipped as he dialled the last number and was still swearing when the line clicked and a clipped voice said, "Good afternoon, Chaucer residence."

The curses curdled in Wat's mouth and it was all he could do to stammer out, "Is Geoff there?"

There was a silence at the end of the line and Wat could just imagine the pinched lips and flared nostrils and only hoped the shock of his common-as-muck accent hadn't caused a heart attack in whoever had answered. Destroying a bike he could live with. Destroying a much-loved family member was a whole other thing.

"Hello? Hello?" Wat turned towards the watching Kate and Roland and twirled a finger next to his temple. "I want to speak to Geoffrey. Geoffrey Chaucer? You know? Who lives there?"

The reply was icy. "One moment, sir."

The 'sir' threw Wat. He'd never been sirred in his life and he wasn't so sure he wanted to start now, ta very much. But by the time he'd got a good bridle on, the same cheery voice that had breezed right on through Wat's excruciating pain weeks before blew past his ear.

"Geoff here. Who's this?"

"Who the fuck says sir to a kid?" asked Wat, ignoring the way Kate exploded into silent laughter against Roland's side. 

"Hmm," said Geoff. "Charming and eloquent. Let me see. Laurence Olivier, is that you?"

"Oh, piss off."

There was another silence, but nothing like the first. It was strange, but Wat could sense Geoff's grin warming it. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep the scowl on his own face. This was business, not pleasure.

"Well, and good day to you, too, Wat the Socialist's Child. How's the old collar bone doing? Are you well? I've been wondering about you."

"That's 'cos you've got too much time on your hands, rich boy," said Wat, not about to give an inch. "I'm healing, aren't I? You want me to fix your bike or not?"

Geoff laughed. "Straight to the point. I like that. Yes, I would like it immensely. I've been rather lost without my glorious steed, let me tell you, and I'm too young to have my wings clipped."

Not too young to have your ears clipped, though, thought Wat and then wondered exactly when he'd become his dad. "Yeah, well, great. I got nothing happening so whenever's good for you."

Another brief silence, and then, "Tomorrow. Pick me up after school. You know where St. Thomas's is, of course."

"Of course." Wat mimicked the other boy's accent, rolling his eyes. "Absolutely. Ta ta for now!" And before Geoff could say another word, Wat hung up.

"Posh twat," he said with scorn. "Pick him up after school. What am I? His lackey?"

"You want me to knock you up a nice livery? You'd look ever so lovely in green and gold."

Wat had a cruel reminder of exactly how much healing he still had to do as he lunged with extreme violence at Roland's head.

***

Wat skidded to a halt outside the tall, iron gates, taking a vicious satisfaction in the black streaks his tyres left on the pavement. Even that seemed poshed up by the presence of the high, brick walls—not simple red like normal folk would have, but a buttery gold that made Wat want to punch it for being so smug. A red school bus idled at its stop and a few cars lined the street, bored-looking parents drumming their fingers against steering wheels. He checked his watch. It was still a few minutes before he'd be surrounded by wankers in blazers so he slipped off the saddle, leaned his bike against the wall and followed suit, the sole of one scuffed-up boot kicking idly at the bricks. 

A neatly–dressed lady about the same age as his mum stalked past on the other side of the road, mouth pursed in that precise way Wat had long learned to read as irritated disgust. He grinned. Probably lowering the value of the houses round about just by standing here, he thought. Good. He kicked at the wall some more, enjoying the way the woman's eyes narrowed, but not so much the way she reached for the handbag swinging at her side, clutching it tight. Wat's grin vanished. Just because he was used to being judged didn't make it cool. Or right. Anger burned in his throat and he was just about to yell something about arse cheeks and clenching when the school bell shattered his attention. 

"Saved by the bell," he muttered to himself, watching as a bald man with a belly so round he looked like he was ready to drop a sprog any second ambled towards the gates, unlocking the giant padlock and heaving them open. 

Wat slithered along the wall, taking up a vantage point at the gatepost. The school itself was set someway back from the road. Two small doors stood either side of a central arch and first one then the other swung open, boys of all sizes tumbling out, spreading in different directions, some towards the gate, some making for somewhere Wat couldn't see. Everyone seemed to be shouting; it reminded Wat of the time their record player had got the volume control stuck on maximum and even his mum's Val Doonican LPs sounded like someone was trying to start World War Three. 

A group of tall lads, their ties a different colour than those of the younger boys, slouched out together, deep in an animated conversation that involved flailing arms and what Wat considered far too much in the way of hair flicking for his liking. A blond boy in the middle looked up from the book he'd been wielding like a weapon and his eyes met Wat's. He raised his eyebrows in greeting. Wat had wondered if he'd recognise Geoff, what with only having met the once and that in memory-blanking circumstances. But there was no mistaking him, the lanky git. He lifted his chin in return.

Geoff said something to his group of friends and then broke away from them, quickening his step to a light jog. Wat let himself be pleased with the fact that he wasn't to be kept waiting for half a second before the more cynical part of his brain butted in that probably it was because Geoff didn't want the embarrassment of introducing his lout acquaintance to his friends. He scowled, slid his eyes away over Geoff's shoulder and saw something that made him shoot upright. Was that…? Fucking posh _bastards_. 

He started running towards the school, shoving boys out of the way, ignoring their shouts of disapproval and Geoff's confused face. He was on the tosser before the boy had a chance to even notice him, using his momentum to shoulder barge him off the kid and twist him up against the wall, one arm shoved up under his neck. The jarring impact shot a piercing pain through Wat, but he didn't let it deflect him from his mission for a second.

"What are you…?" the dark-haired boy started, green eyes wide with fear and contempt. Wat pressed harder and he stopped talking.

Without taking his eyes from his quarry, Wat said, "William, are you okay?"

"Yes."

Wat glanced down. The kid he'd relieved of the tosspot's attention was pale, but squared his shoulders and nodded, fair curls bouncing. "Good. How's your dad?"

"He's got a date for the operation. We're pretty hopeful about it. Maybe things can get back to normal after."

"That's great. Kickabouts aren't the same without you."

The dark-haired boy attempted a feeble scrabble at Wat's arm. "This is all very heart-warming, but…" His words ended on a choke as Wat pressed in again. 

"Thanks, Wat. You know. For everything."

"No problem, kiddo. So, William?"

"Yes?"

"Run."

"But…"

"Run, William."

William didn't need telling a second time and Wat counted to ten in his head as he listened to the kid's pounding footsteps fade away. 

"Now look here, you giant dick," he said. "William is a _kid_. He's a good kid, but the key word is _kid_. You know who picks on kids? Fucking cowards, that's who. So let me tell you this one time. If I ever hear you've been near him again, I will come back and I will fuck your shit up. Do we understand each other?"

The boy sneered. "Do you know who I am? Do you really think that I'd be cowed by a pathetic _yob_ , like you?"

Wat tilted his head, considering. "No and no," he said. "But I can teach you if you like."

"Teach me _what_?"

"Okay, then." And Wat lifted his leg and kneed the boy in the balls. Hard. 

He let go, admiring the way the dickhead crumpled into himself and then took a step back, turned and legged it back the way he'd come, grabbing a stunned-looking Geoff on the way. He seized his bike and threw himself on it.

"Backie or nothing," he said over his shoulder.

"Backie's fine." Geoff straddled the wheel and dropped onto the bike rack.

"Which way?"

"The way you're facing."

"Seatbelts, please. We could be in for a bumpy ride."

"Oh, my giddy aunt," said Geoff, and Wat kicked off, picking up speed as he weaved through the pedestrians and traffic. "What the hell did you just do?"

Wat just laughed.

The big houses had given way to even bigger houses and wider, tree-lined roads when Geoff said, "The drive is left past the copper beech." He paused. "The tree with red leaves."

"I know what a copper beech is, thanks," said Wat, swerving in tight on purpose, then forgetting exactly why he'd been annoyed as the drive rounded a corner and the house rose up in front of him. The brakes shrieked as he slammed them on. Wat ignored the sudden lightening of the bike and Geoff's muffled curses and climbed off the saddle.

"Holy fuck, your house is _curved_ ," he said, staring at the white walls and wishing he was wearing sunglasses. 

Geoff appeared at his shoulder, inspecting his trousers for who knew what. "Art Deco," he said. "I rather love it. There's something inspiring about curves, you know? As if the architect was saying that your home shouldn't be a box where you're laid to rest at night like a doll. It should gather you up and…"

"You don't half talk a load of bollocks," Wat interrupted. "Where should I put my bike?"

To Wat's irritation, Geoff refused to look even remotely bothered by being cut off mid-flow. "Oh, the second garage. That's where mine is, poor thing."

Wat rolled his eyes and wheeled his bike along the drive, waiting for Geoff to open the garage door. The sense of unease he'd been carrying all afternoon quieted a bit at the familiar smell of grease and the sight of a mishmash of tools and, well, to put no fine point on it, a bunch of crap stuffed onto shelves and leaned against walls in nothing resembling any kind of order whatsoever. This was something he knew. He leaned his bike against the least junk-filled wall and said, "Okay, let's get started."

"Not so fast. I'm starving and inappropriately dressed for the occasion, wouldn't you say? Come with me."

Wat would have given anything to ignore the bossy tone, but he was here to fix stuff, not to create, so he trailed Geoff through the first garage (no car, but a patch of oil on the floor indicating a regular occupant) and into the house. The space rose up above him, the light filtering through the vast window high above the door casting a crisscross pattern on the floor.

"You. Are so. Rich."

"I know." Geoff screwed up his face as if to apologise. "Can't take any credit there, of course. Father works all hours. I sometimes wonder if I'd rather be a little less rich and see him a little more."

Wat's laugh was pretty high on his scorn-o-meter. Those years of his dad's constant underemployment had been so great for Fowlehurst family bonding. "Yeah, right."

Geoff looked at him thoughtfully and then smiled. "I did say _sometimes_. Follow me!" He turned and charged up the stairs two at a time. 

Wat stared down at his not-exactly-clean boots, shrugged and went after him. Geoff's bedroom was at least twice the size of his own and contained approximately one hundred percent more books. One wall was entirely covered in bookcases, a bed larger than the one Wat's parents slept in took up most of another wall and a large, wooden desk sat square between the corner window and a French door to the outside. Wat couldn't see where that led to, but he was presuming it wasn't straight down. The desk was a disaster area, layered with crumpled paper, pads and pens and more books. What bits of wall were left alone by books were covered with an eclectic mix of classical art, tour posters and clippings from newspapers and magazines.

There were too many words in this room, Wat thought, and threw himself backwards on the bed as Geoff rummaged through his wardrobe. He tucked his arms behind his head and sighed. This was a _good_ mattress. His own sleeping position was entirely based on how he could avoid that one spring that would not be squashed back into place, no matter what he did. If he didn't find a job soon, Wat considered that joining the circus as a contortionist could be a viable career option.

"If you can forgive the intrusion, why aren't you in school?"

Wat tensed. "Because school and me weren't a good match so I asked it for a divorce. I left. I'm old enough."

"But what about your qualifications? Don't you need your exams?"

"I don't need _nothing_ ," Wat growled, sitting bolt upright, fists clenching. "And if you think you can…"

Geoff turned, holding his school shirt in one hand, the other up in a calming gesture. "Hey, hey, I'm not…I promise I'm not judging you, I'm merely interested. Your path is very different to mine. That's all."

Wat let the heat of his anger die down a little. "Yeah? That's not the only thing that's different is it?" He pointed to Geoff's bare chest. "You ever heard of muscle, skinny boy?"

"I'm not the one that needs it for scraps and fisticuffs, am I?"

"Are you a twat by accident, or on purpose?"

"Oh, a little of both," said Geoff, turning back to his clothes, and flicking through the hangers.

"Good thing I'm still too young for adult prison, isn't it?" said Wat. "Seeing as how this whole thing's bound to end in your grisly death."

He flung himself back again, closing his eyes and listening to Geoff change. Probably wearing some posh boy slacks with perfect creases. There was a small creak as the bed dipped and Geoff's voice came from a lot closer.

"Another question, I'm sorry. Are you always this angry or is it simply that I bring out the worst in you?"

Wat's eyes flew open. No one had ever asked him that before and it shocked him into honesty. "It's like…like I'm a broken cooker or something. Like the gas burner's always on low, but someone knocks the knob and suddenly it's all, whoa! Flames to take your eyebrows off. It's not you." He thought for a second. "Well, not just you."

"That sounds exhausting," Geoff said, sounding so sympathetic that Wat couldn't decide if it made him want to punch him harder than he'd ever punched anyone, or not to punch him at all. "Has it been like this your whole life?"

The silence stretched out between them, Wat's mind whirring over all the potential options. He'd never talked about this, not in all the years of educational psychologists or hopeful counsellors. Geoff was no one, not really. He was a short detour on wherever Wat's life was headed, that was all. So either he was the perfect person to listen to the mess in Wat's brain, or the worst. Geoff was right; this was exhausting.

"If you don't want…" Geoff made to get up and Wat reached out, grabbing his wrist and pulling him back down.

"No. It's not…Just wait." He let go and sat up, deliberately at right angles to Geoff so he wouldn't have to look him in the eye. "It weren't always like this, but it's getting hard to remember it not being. I had a brother-"

"Wat, I'm-"

"Shut up. Don't. I had a brother. John. He liked trains and liquorice and he'd read me his comics under the blankets with a torch when we were supposed to be asleep. He got himself run over like a stupid fucking idiot. I was five. We all got our ways of dealing with it, right? Dad drinks, Mum pretends everything's just the way she always planned, and I…I hit things. People. Not everyone. Just if they deserve it. Can't hit John, so…" Wat stopped talking, afraid to trust his voice. Eleven years on and there was still a part of him so raw that he could hardly stand to touch it. Maybe it wasn't a spring in the mattress he was bending himself round.

There was a light brush against his arm. "Wat. You should note that I'd prefer you not to punch me in the face, but I think that what you probably need right now is a hug. So I'm going to do that."

Wat leapt to his feet, putting the bed between him and Geoff. "Oh, _hell_ no!" 

Geoff grinned, wide and evil. "I think you'll find I am." 

He feinted one way, but Wat was too quick and took a step back, looking for an exit. Geoff jumped up on the bed, lunging for Wat, just as he took off and flung open the outside door, running out onto a balcony. Shit, shit, shit, where to go? He spied another door leading off the balcony and made for that, Geoff hot on his heels. Through the door Wat went, plunging into another bedroom. He tore through that one, too, making for the stairs. He was halfway down them at the landing when he heard a thump and then there was Geoff in front of him, barring his way.

"How did you…?"

"Shortcut. Jumped the rail."

"Move."

"Hug."

"Move."

" _Hug._ "

Wat gave his finest eye roll. There was no way he was getting past, so he'd just have to go straight on through. He took a step forward. "Do it, then."

Geoff's thoughtful look was back and it made Wat's spine itch. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around Wat's back, holding him tightly. "It's not fair," he said, one thumb rubbing up and down Wat's shoulder blade. "It's not. I'm sorry."

And Wat, unable to help himself, lifted up his own arms and held on as if Geoff was the only thing that could stop him blowing away. The familiar sting was in his eyes, but instead of making him want to break things as usual he felt soothed. They stood quietly for a long moment until a door slamming in the distance startled them apart. Wat took a step back, plastering the scowl back on his face.

"Better?" 

Wat wanted to accuse Geoff of being a smug git, but the cap, for once, didn't seem to fit. Instead he let himself pay attention to what Geoff was wearing—tight, red and white striped t-shirt with slashed neck, high-waisted denim flares held up with a flowery scarf. No shoes.

"Not a fucking _glam_ baby?"

Geoff held out his arms and twirled. "Glam is where it's at, daddio," he said. "Now do you want a sandwich before we start or not?"

As usual, Wat's stomach won out over even the potential for piss-taking. "And will sir's bread be hand-crafted by one's own personal baker?" 

Well. Almost.

***

"And here she is." Geoff stroked the crossbar of the sadly battered bicycle. 

Wat, squatting in front of the machine, sucked air in between his teeth. "See, that's what you get when you mix weight classes. You wouldn't put Buchanan up against Cooper, would you?"

"You wouldn't…What?"

"Don't know everything, do you, Braniac? The world of pugilism is a blinking mystery to you, innit?"

Geoff folded his arms, lips twitching. "Four syllable words now, Wat. I must be rubbing off on you already."

"You wish," muttered Wat, reaching out to touch the sheared brake cable. Behind him, Geoff coughed violently. "Too much for your delicate lungs, is it, the oil and that?"

"No, no. I'm fine. What's the damage and can you fix it?"

Wat stood again, inspecting the bike with thorough care before replying. "Well, that front wheel's had it, the back one needs truing and your brakes are gonna be just fine so long as you don't mind playing Russian Roulette with your precious skull. Other than that, you got some scuffing on the frame and your derailleur's got more dirt in it than the _News of the Screws_ , but it's nothing I can't handle."

"You are a godsend!" Geoff took an impulsive step forward and Wat stepped back, hands raised.

"No more hugging."

Geoff patted the bike again. "I'm more likely to hug the dear old Galaxy. Trust me."

Wat narrowed his eyes. You let people hug you one time and they thought they got rights. Just look what happened with Lisa Taylor that time at the Harvest Festival. "Yeah, well, not so much a godsend when I messed up your bike in the first place, was I? So, look. I can make a start now, if you like, but we're gonna need to get some parts."

"That could prove difficult," said Geoff. "I told you, my pockets are to let. Moths are making themselves at home in my wallet."

"Don't that seem odd to you? Like, you've got all this," Wat waved his hands in a general look-at-the-size-of-your-house circle, "but no readies?"

Geoff shrugged. "I know. To be truthful, if I ask for something, I usually get it, but Father is currently attempting to teach me adult responsibility before I leave for uni. Assuming I don't mess up my exams, of course. It's…a work in progress."

"Don't matter. We can go to the dump. Cannibalise us a couple of rejects and Bob's your uncle's bookie. Done."

"The _dump_?"

"Are you going all delicate on me again?" 

"Oh, what the hell. In for a penny, as they say."

"That's the point, innit? No pennies needed. Now give us a look at that toolbox and I'll get at that wheel."

Geoff watched Wat work in an intense silence that made Wat feel more uncomfortable than the earlier questioning had. He gritted his teeth and got on with the job, but by the time he was putting the final touches to the spokes he couldn't stand it anymore and blurted out,

"Who was the tosspot bullying our William?" He caught the puzzled frown on Geoff's face and added, "Before. The guy I nearly clobbered at your school. Dark hair. Expressive eyes. You know."

Light dawned. "Oh, of course. Sorry. I was miles away there. That delightful example of humanity is Adam. Adam Orr. If he's got it in for your friend I'm afraid he's probably in for a rough time of it."

"Not if he wants to stay attached to his gentlemen." Wat had to be careful not to over-tighten the spokes, no matter how hard his fingers clenched around the spanner. "Do you know why he's bullying William, then? Is it 'cos he's on a scholarship because I tell you what, that boy has worked for everything he's got and…"

"No," interrupted Geoff. "It's not that. Adam…he's a terrible snob. He doesn't even acknowledge the scholarship boys exist. It's cricket."

"It's not."

"It is."

"It bloody isn't cricket. Being hoity toity la-dee-da above the poor kids? Not cricket at all."

Geoff frowned and then grinned. "Well, absolutely. It's not cricket. It is, however, cricket."

Wat, checking the tension of a pair of spokes, stilled. "I am so confused."

"The problem Adam has with William relates to the school cricket team. It is in no way an edited metaphor for ungentlemanly behaviour."

"Ah."

"Indeed. Here's how I understand the problem. William is the best fast bowler we've had in years. Possibly the best ever, in point of fact. If you haven't seen him break a ball then you've missed one of the most beautiful things the world has to offer. He has an eye for it, you see. The run up, the intense focus, the devastating toss, the fear on the face of the batsman as he realises he has no choice to play the ball that's going to bring him to disaster. So, obviously, the beaks weren't going to miss such a golden opportunity for our advancement up the inter-schools league table and he's been promoted to the First Eleven. Trust me when I tell you that's tremendously startling for a kid of fourteen."

"That's all well and good and I'm proud as punch and all that, but what's that got to do with the Orr wanker?"

"If you'd let me finish?"

"If you'd get to the point."

"You have no poetic soul, Wat. None at all. But fair point. Adam believed he was a shoo-in to captain us to glory this year—it's his last chance, of course. But he's only in as sub. His batting is average and we only need one fast bowler."

"So he thinks William snatched his place?"

"He did. Deservedly snatched, but, yes, snatched indeed. And Adam is not the forgiving kind. I should know."

Wat's ears pricked at the edge of regret in Geoff's voice. "What's he to you?"

Geoff stood from his squatting position, stamping his feet against the concrete floor. "Pins and needles," he explained, though Wat hadn't asked. After hopping from foot to foot for a few silent moments, Geoff continued. "I suppose you could say we're rivals these days. We certainly are both highly convinced of our own genius." He laughed, shaking his head. 

Wat watched as Geoff's expression softened, his eyes seeming to focus on something far beyond the here and now, a small smile on his lips. It was familiar to him; he'd seen it on his mum's face enough times to know that somewhere along the line there was hurt. For the first time he looked at Geoff as someone that was made of flesh and blood like him, not just some cardboard cut-out of a boy with a silver spoon firmly stuck in every orifice.

Finally, Geoff spoke. "We were best friends once, back at prep school. Utterly inseparable, the pair of us. We spent holidays with each other, sat together in form, he used to come home on weekend lieu with me. He wasn't always such a roaring elitist, you know; we had a lot of fun. I… Anyway. That changed about three years ago when my father prosecuted the hell out of his father's company for their very shady business practices. Father won, of course, and I became persona non grata in Adam's life." Geoff shrugged, holding out his palms in a surrendering motion that made Wat clench his fists tight. "And there you have it. The sad tale of two boys, victims of a not so ancient grudge." 

Wat looked back at the bike wheel. "I'm sorry."

"You didn't pour toxic waste into a lake. You've nothing to be sorry for." Geoff's tone was back to the breezy normality Wat was already beginning to recognise. "Now, where are we up to with that wheel?"

" _We_ ain't up to anywhere," scowled Wat, though his heart wasn't entirely in it.

"Oh, come now," said Geoff, resuming his squatting position next to Wat. "I feel my silent support has been a vital part of the process, don't you?"

"Could be more silent, if you like."

"Oh, indubitably." For about ten seconds there was no sound beyond the twisting scratch of metal on metal and then Geoff let rip with a fart that reverberated round the concrete garage. 

Wat was momentarily stunned and then, "Medic!" he yelled. "Medic!"

***

"I think my legs may be about to fall off," said Geoff, as Wat braked with more than his usual care. 

"Your legs? _Your_ legs? Were they the ones shifting your dead weight over miles? I don't think so. It's my legs we should be concerned about. Backies ain't for wimps."

"I probably looked like an overgrown grasshopper," Geoff mourned. 

"Shouldn't be so tall then, should you?"

"I shall try harder to stunt my growth in my next life. That will have to do, I'm afraid."

Wat ignored him, scouting the dump with his hand shading his eyes to ward against the sun, which chose that moment to helpfully glint off a pile of metal. Wat pointed towards it. "There. See, by the skips. And seeing as how this is probably your first time, breathe shallow. I'm not dragging you home if you faint."

"My hero."

Bikes leaned precariously against each other in a higgledy-piggledy mess. Some were missing parts, others in various states of disrepair and some that seemed ready to go, if only they could find themselves a willing rider. These were mostly the smallest; relics of children now grown past them, fading ribbons still wound round slowly rusting spokes.

Wat clapped his hands. "This is gonna be so easy. Come to daddy, you gorgeous spare parts, you." He spun on his heel, walking backwards and raising his hands into the air.

Geoff watched him go, his face holding an expression Wat couldn't read.

"What?"

"What what?"

"'What, Wat?' or 'What what?'"

Geoff shook his head. "There's only one you, isn't there?"

"Last time I looked," said Wat and spun back round, pulling the abandoned bikes aside until he'd found what he wanted. 

It didn't take long to get everything together and Wat was just about to pack up when a battered BMX caught his eye. "Aww, yes," he crowed, and set to.

"What's yes?"

"You'll see soon enough." Wat finished detaching the parts he needed. "Come on, let's get out of this place. You're looking all pale and calamitous, like." He reached out one hand as if to touch Geoff's forehead and then yanked it back. "Oh, wait, that's just how you always look."

"Hilarious. I don't suppose you're going to tell me how we get that wheel back home?"

"That's easy," said Wat, digging into his rucksack and pulling out a length of rope. "Turn round."

Geoff dropped to his knees, hands clasped in front of his face. "Oh, sir, sir! Please! I'll do whatever you want, just don't take me prisoner. My poor mamma, what will she do if I don't come home with the medicine for my little sister? And her with the consumption! What will become of us?"

Wat looked about him wildly, but it was still early and the few people he could see were busy with their own affairs and paying no attention to his. He looked back at Geoff. "You are so embarrassing," he said. "Get up or I'm leaving you here."

Geoff grinned and got to his feet. "You wouldn't," he said with utter confidence. Wat had no idea where he'd got that from. He'd leave the posh git in a flash. Probably.

"Try me," he muttered and shoved at Geoff's shoulder. Geoff gave easily, shuffling round. He was entirely biddable as Wat lashed the wheel to his back. Wat frowned, wondering what he could possibly be planning now. 

When he was finished, Geoff sighed. "Back to the rack. More precisely, lashed to a wheel and back to the rack. I feel like a saint."

"Well, you're not one. And hold your horses." Wat took the two bars he'd rescued from the BMX and screwed them to either side of his back wheel. "Ta da!"

"Ta huh?"

"Stunt bars, dummy. You can stand on them. Give you a backie that way. No more human grasshopping."

"I do believe you might be my new favourite," said Geoff. "Seriously."

"Yeah? You're not mine," said Wat, but there was a smile on his face whether he liked it or not. He settled the rucksack and slung his leg over the crossbar. "If you get them flares caught in my back wheel you're paying for any damage, okay? And if I do my collarbone again my mum'll have your guts for garters, so's you know. Good. Now, you ready?"

There was a brief rustling sound and then the bike dipped under extra weight on one side. "Ready." 

"Hold on then."

Geoff's hands settled on Wat's shoulders. Even though Wat was expecting it, he startled at the unaccustomed touch. Geoff's hands were warm and burned through the thin cotton of Wat's t-shirt and his grip was firm. Wat braced, swallowed and pushed off.

"Oh my god, this is amazing!" yelled Geoff into Wat's ear as they sped along the road. "Maybe I should travel like this all the time."

"Lazy bastard," Wat yelled back, swerving so that Geoff yelped and changed his grip, hands slipping down to grasp each other across Wat's chest.

"Bloody hell, leave me some space for my lungs," complained Wat, but he was grinning. It was strange, the low flames were rising again, but this time it didn't feel like anger; it simply felt warm.

***

"I'm going to have to retract the favourite designation," said Geoff, wriggling his shoulders. "Will you get this thing off me? I feel like a sad reject from the Roman Army." 

"I'm _trying_ , aren't I?" Wat tugged at the rope, making a mental note to never admit to his mum that she'd been right about the nail biting all along. "The knot's gone and got all gnarled."

Geoff twisted his head round, trying to get a look and succeeding only in moving the problem away from Wat. 

"Stand still!"

"I _am_ standing still," said Geoff, feet following behind head with Wat could only interpret as the thing coppers called malice aforethought.

"Standing still, my donkey's arse." His fingers chased the knot. "If you don't stop moving I'll give you something to move about."

Geoff shuffled again, to Wat's muffled exasperation. "What does that even mean? You'll put on a record and I'll simply have to dance? Or will you give me a place to move about in? A maze, perhaps? You need to be more specific with your words, Wat."

Wat spoke through clenched teeth. "I. Will. Kick you. In. The balls," he said. "Is that specific enough for you, posh boy?"

"I suppose crumpling to the floor equates to moving, so yes, that works." Geoff's whole body twisted as he turned to grin at Wat and Wat, too frustrated to pay attention, followed the disappearing knot, only to trip over his own rucksack, make a wild, flailing grab for support, crash the pair of them into Geoff's bike and, finally, collapse in an undignified heap on the garage floor.

"Ow," said Geoff, flat on his back across Wat's stomach.

"Ow? _Ow_? Who's the one with the pedal up his arse and a wheel rim in his ribs? Get off!"

"I am getting off," said Geoff, making no apparent move that Wat could see.

"What on earth is all this brouhaha?" asked a new voice. A female voice.

Wat swivelled his eyes towards the garage door. Whoever this was, flat on the floor with the son of the house sprawled across him, was probably not the finest introduction he could make. She was tall, willowy and blonde, dressed in a long white robe that could equally be nightwear or her having delusions of an angelic nature. Her blue eyes did not twinkle, but the set of her mouth left Wat in no doubt at all that here was Geoff's mum. Well, crap.

He lifted a hand and waved weakly. "Sorry." As first words went, it wasn't his best, but it was difficult to know what to lead with. "Hi, I'm Wat. Your son's an annoying twat so we're chilling on the floor." Nope, didn't exactly have the right ring.

She narrowed her eyes. "Geoffrey?"

Now Geoff moved. The wheel hub dug painfully into Wat's stomach as Geoff got to his feet. Wat bit back the automatic expletives that leapt into his mouth and disentangled himself from the bike.

"Did we disturb you, Mother? It must have been quite the racket, then. Never fear, no one is maimed and nothing of value is broken so you can go on as you were."

"Well that is good to know," she said, looking past her son at Wat.

Wat blushed a fiery red, silently hating himself for doing so. He'd always had problems with beautiful women, especially older ones. They never seemed entirely real to him, but because it was him that was missing a layer, not them. Not good enough, probably. He was about to stammer out another apology when Geoff said, "This is my friend, Wat. He's helping me fix my bike. I'm learning more than I can tell you."

Friend? They'd known each other all of two days. Was that friendship? Wat didn't _hate_ Geoff, but they weren't friends, were they?

Geoff's mum inclined her head. "Thank you for helping my son, Wat. He spends so much time with his head in the clouds that perhaps he forgets what hands are for." She turned her attention back to her son. "Darling, don't forget your exams. Practical skills don't secure A grades, do they?"

"Of course, Mother. Trust me, it's under control." There was an edge to Geoff's voice that was different to the constant whine of familial exasperation Wat used on his own parents. Wat shifted on his feet, uncomfortable.

"No doubt." Mrs Chaucer turned to go and stopped with her hand on the doorframe. She looked back. "I don't believe Debrett's would recommend, ah, _lolling_ upon your guest, darling. Perhaps you should reread the chapters on being a gentleman."

"Yes, Mother," said Geoff, but his words were directed to her retreating back. 

Alone again, the two boys stood in awkward silence. Wat had a million things to say—at the top of the list, "Is she for _real_?"—but calling someone's mum was a sure way to a fight and his ribs were already bruising. He thought about venturing an, "Are you okay?" but that was straying into the friend territory he wasn't yet sure they were inhabiting. Then there was the, "So about this wheel," gambit, but maybe Geoff would think he was ignoring the whole mum thing on purpose. It was a minefield, is what it was. 

"Well!" said Geoff, in an over-bright tone. "Always a pleasure. Moving on?"

Wat breathed a sigh of relief. "I think we're gonna need a penknife."

"Oh, I don't know. Murder is a little drastic, isn't it? She's just…" Geoff trailed off. It was the first time Wat had seen him lost for words. It was less satisfying than he'd imagined.

"Gonna murder someone a penknife's not the way to go."

"Really?"

"Sure. Too messy. You want a nice clean kill no one can pin on you."

"Poison, then?"

And by the time they'd worked out the perfect crime and considered and rejected several victims, Wat had fitted the wheel and threaded the brake cable and Geoff was back to the same bloke that Wat was getting to know and maybe, sort of, tolerate. You know, in small doses. 

"So." Wat gave the Galaxy a last pat on the saddle.

"So." Geoff's hand flexed on the handlebar.

"She looks great. Running smooth as you like."

"Yes."

"I'll be off, then." Wat grabbed his own bike, wheeling it round in a wide curve. "It's been…good luck with your exams, and that. Don't go ruining my good work by crashing into any other idiots."

"I won't."

Would a thank you kill him? Wat knew that it was his own fault that he was here in the first place, but Geoff had called them friends and now here he was seeing Wat off the premises with not even a cheese sandwich to call his own. Wat tightened his grip on his bike, throwing his leg over the crossbar. He put a foot on the pedal.

"Wait!"

He waited. Geoff's lips were tight, like he was holding something in. Wat had no patience with that, no matter he was past master at it himself. "Spit it out," he said. "I ain't got all day. Got other people to see."

Geoff seemed to come to a decision, because all at once his shoulders relaxed. "You've done a marvellous job, you know. Truly. And sometimes it does feel like calamity dogs my heels and I can't guarantee I won't end up in another heap at some point. I won't have anyone to help me when I go away to college next year. Not like you. So, Wat, if you would, maybe you could teach me some basic bicycle maintenance skills? If it wouldn't take up too much of your time, of course. I'm not as useless as I look, I promise."

Wat's spine straightened, smug warmth radiating from every pore. "If you want to hang out with me, you can just say so."

"I don't…I want…Why can't I…Ugh! You are so infuriating!"

"'S all right. I'll teach you if you want. And you don't have to go admitting to anyone you've got a peasant for a mate." Wat gloried in Geoff's indignant expression. "You got no posh boy friends you'd rather pal around with?"

Geoff looked down at his bike, running his hand along the crossbar. "Not really. I mean, of course there are people I talk to at school, but it's difficult being a dayboy. The boarders have their own things going on and…Honestly? I think they're scared of Adam. He hates with the same focus he loves, you see. Who'd be on the wrong side of that?"

Now it was Wat's turn to be infuriated. Who would give an honest answer to that kind of question? Geoff, apparently, that was who. Wat was filled with a sudden desire to punch something really, really hard. 

"Didn't ask for your life story, did I?" he said, tempering his snappiness with an exaggerated eye roll. "I can come same time next week if you like."

"Sure."

"Yeah, well, go and crack a book, Shakespeare." Wat pushed off and pedalled down the drive, not looking back. 

Friend, he thought, trying the word on for size. I've gone and got myself a new friend. A new, posh, annoying friend. Yeah, it worked. He tucked the word away and sped on towards home.

***


	3. Chapter 3

_Thud, scrape, thud, scrape._ Wat had dreamed about him, Kate and Roland hi-hoing it in some kind of chocolate mine free-for-all, but the noise persisted as he opened his eyes, scrunching them against the unwelcome daylight. It was all well and good earning a bit of under-the-table cash as potman in his auntie's pub, but the hours were feeding his natural tendencies to sleep the day away. _Thud, scrape, thud, scrape_. He rolled over and checked his alarm clock. Just past eleven. That was nothing. Not when he was on the evening shift. Wat let his eyes drift closed again. _Thud, scrape, thud, scrape_. Okay, that was getting annoying. No amount of imaginary mined chocolate was going to make up for the constant assault on his ears. With an irritated exhale, Wat knelt on his bed, pulling back the curtain and peered outside, wincing at the brightness of the day. There was nothing to see apart from Mrs Allan over the road cleaning her windows in her negligee. Again. 

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Wat fumbled at the window catch, pushing it open and leaning out. Oh. Well that explained that then.

"William Thatcher, you're gonna kick that ball right through the wall if you keep that up. That or I'll kick it through your head."

William froze mid-kick, jerking around and looking up at Wat. His smile was brilliant, but brief and Wat would have to be an idiot not to realise that something was definitely wrong in his friend's world.

"What's wrong with you, then? Wait, it's not your dad, is it?"

William shook his head, tucking his hands into his school blazer pockets. Wat frowned. School trousers? Eleven o'clock? "Are you skiving off? Because if you are…"

"No!" Even from a distance, Wat could tell the kid was fighting back tears. "I've been suspended."

"You've been _what_? Do not move. I'm coming down." Wat slammed the window and threw on the first clothes that came to hand. He was still shoving his feet into a boot as he half-hopped, half-fell out of the front door.

William waited for him, ball tucked under one arm, but where Wat would have lounged against the wall for England he stood straight-backed, a good little soldier in his neatly pressed uniform. Wat shook his head at him.

"At ease, Private," he said, grabbing William's elbow and pulling him to sit down on Wat's doorstep. "I don't understand. You can't even _stand_ wrong. How did you go and get yourself suspended? Did you break into the school to tidy up?"

William turned troubled eyes on him. "Someone broke into the pav and graffitied all over. And they smashed up the trophy cabinet and took the Player of the Year trophy."

"Okay. One. Pav? Two. What's that got to do with you?"

"Cricket pavilion." William's head drooped. "It has to do with me because they found the trophy in my locker."

Wat's fists clenched. "They found _what_? You told 'em it wasn't you, right?"

"Yes. They didn't believe me." William's voice was so small Wat had to strain to listen.

"They didn't-" Before his righteous anger could set to boil, William interrupted.

"That's not the worst of it, Wat. I'm suspended for two weeks. They threw me off the cricket team and…and you can't keep a scholarship if you've been suspended. I've got until the end of term and then they're kicking me out of school. I haven't told my dad. I can't."

"Oh, William." Wat's anger burst in a flood of sympathy and he flung an arm around the boy's shoulders, patting at him in what he hoped was a vaguely reassuring way.

William leant into him. "We're playing King E's next Saturday. If we win we'll qualify for the Championship Festival. Father, he…He was going to come. He was going to _see_ me play. It would have been the first time in years. I wish…"

"No," said Wat.

"No?"

"I'm not having it, is what. You're keeping that scholarship and playing that game, my lad. The only reason your dad won't see it's because he'll be crying, what with all the pride."

"But how?"

Wat gave William a little shake. "I have no idea," he said. "But I know some people that might."

It was easy enough to scoop up Kate and Roland as they left the PRU for the day. William's plight appealed to Roland's mothering instinct and Kate's blazing hatred of injustice, but they weren't going to be enough to haul the kid out of the hole by themselves. Wat found himself once more dialling Geoff's number.

"Would've thought you'd've told me about it yourself," Wat started.

"Be fair, Wat. I don't know your phone number or where you live. How was I supposed to tell you? Psychic carrier pigeon?"

"Oh." It was true, of course. They'd fallen easily into a weekly pattern of Wat traipsing out to Geoff's house to dispense his valuable bike-related advice and dick about until Geoff's mother's silent disapproval got so thick it seeped through the door. There'd been no need to give Geoff his address. For some reason this made Wat disgruntled. "Well, you gonna help us or not?"

"Are you cross that I didn't invest in the pigeon? I'll do better next time. Of _course_ I'll help you. What did you think?"

Wat didn't have an answer for that. "You know The Phoenix pub? Second right past there coming from your house. 37 Tansy Street. It'll only take fifteen minutes. Us poor folk are closer than you think."

There was a brief pause and then Geoff said, "Right. Try not to break the law or anyone's head before I get there."

"As if," said Wat and hung up.

"He's coming then, is he?" asked Roland, looking intently at his custard cream.

"Says so."

"Hmm."

"What's that mean, 'hmm'?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. It's good to make new friends, isn't it?"

Wat frowned and looked at Kate. She shrugged. "Somebody's feeling left out, maybe?" She reached across and patted Roland's hair. He scowled and pushed her hand away. 

Kate grinned up at Wat. "He's a little touchy. Maybe you should reassure him of your affection. Some people need to hear that, you know."

Wat lunged across the table—William snatching a half full glass of orangeade away from his flailing limbs—and hooked an arm round Roland's neck, knuckling his head. "Who's Wat's best friend?" he crooned, resisting Roland's attempts to prise him off. "You are. Yes, you are." He let go, grabbed Roland's face, planted a smacking kiss on his forehead and then slithered back over the table to avoid repercussions.

By the time Geoff arrived, almost exactly twenty minutes after Wat had phoned, they'd been booted out of the kitchen by Wat's mum and decamped to Wat's bedroom. It was already a squash with the four of them in there, Kate and Roland either side of him filling the narrow bed and William a still, miserable heap pressed up against the chest of drawers. Wat had no clue how Geoff was going to fold his lanky limbs into the remaining space. At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, Wat's stomach squeezed with nervous tension. He curled his fists. If Geoff indicated by so much as a raised eyebrow that this house, these people, were beneath his notice then Wat was not going to answer for the broken and bloody consequences. 

There was a rap on the door, almost immediately followed by it opening and Geoff craning his blond mop round the side. 

"What ho!" he said, with an eyebrow waggle directed at Wat. "That's what what, not Wat what in case you were wondering." He looked round the rest of the room. "Hello. Can I come in?"

Wat's stomach squeezed again for no sensible reason he could fathom and he said, "Well, no. We called for you just so's you could stand out there like a big fanny. You carry on, now." 

Kate punched Wat's arm, flapping a hand in front of his face as he scowled and complained. "Hello to you, too. Come in and ignore this idiot. We do."

Geoff didn't need telling twice. He shut the door behind him and it seemed to Wat that his room had shrunk even more. He watched Geoff's eyes sweep round the small space, pausing minutely at something on Wat's drawers before he leaned back against the floor and slid to the floor with a surprising amount of grace, though the knees round his ears spoiled the effect somewhat.

"I suppose if we wait for Wat to do the polite thing we'll be here all day," said Geoff. "I'm Geoffrey. Geoffrey Chaucer." He looked at William. "I know Thatcher, of course. Best bowler the school's seen in years." William managed a small smile at this acknowledgement. "And obviously you are the Roland and Kate Wat talks about. It's good to finally put faces to names. Though he significantly underplayed your beauty-"

"I wouldn't, mate," said Wat. "For your health, like."

"-Roland," finished Geoff, solemn-eyed. "You should learn not to interrupt, Wat." 

There was a brief silence broken by the phone ringing downstairs. Roland grinned. "That'll be _Vogue_ ," he said. "I promised them first dibs on this hot property."

When the laughter died away, Wat's hands were loose again on the duvet cover and the only thing his stomach was feeling was mild hunger pangs.

"So we all know why we're here," said Kate. "And we're one hundred percent behind you, William, we are. But what are we going to do?"

Wat and Geoff exchanged looks. "It's him, isn't it?"

"Mathematics was never my subject, but I'd say the probabilities shake out that way."

"I'm gonna hit him so hard he'll wear his insides on the outside. And then I'll make him _eat_ them."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Roland lifted his palms placatingly. "Before you get yourself nicked for whatever law turning someone into a self-cannibal breaks, if there is any such thing, do you want to share with the rest of the class?"

"The chances are that the whole thing was perpetrated by a classmate of mine: Adam Orr."

"Got it in for William, hasn't he? I've already had words."

"Looks like they fell on deaf ears, then." Kate leaned over and patted William's shoulder. "Let's see, what would Miss Marple do?"

"Knit?"

"Irritate the constabulary?"

"Chatter on?"

"Gather evidence," said Kate, choosing to ignore the three older boys. "William, what happened to the graffiti?"

"It's still there. I'm supposed to clean it when they let me back from suspension."

"Clean up your own messes is one of their favourites," Geoff agreed. "They're all about facing the consequences of one's actions."

"Well, that works in our favour, doesn't it? We can investigate the scene of the crime and perhaps search Adam's room, too. Does he have a room?"

Geoff nodded at Kate. "He has his own. But it doubles as his study and he'll probably be there on free periods. The only time we can guarantee we can get into the pav and his room both is during dinnertime. Attendance is mandatory."

"What time's that then?"

"Five thirty. On the dot. Unless you want to go down in The Book, of course. I wouldn't recommend it, eh, Thatcher?" Geoff shared a small smile with William.

Wat folded his arms. "Can't do today. I'm on the evening shift, aren't I? Start at six."

"How does tomorrow work?"

"Fine by me. Kate? Roland?"

"Sure. I'm ahead of my revision timetable anyway. It shouldn't be a problem to fit in a little breaking and entering in between Maths and Physics."

Roland shrugged his agreement. "One tiny question," he said. "How are we going to get in?"

"Ah, well, that's where I come in, isn't it? Your inside man. There's a wooden gate to the playing field down from the main entrance. I'll filch the keys and unlock it for you. The pav itself is never locked until sunset because of extra practice. That part should be easy."

"What about Orr's room? Can you do that by yourself?"

"Better to be in pairs at least. If Adam spots me at it it's going to be tricky to explain away, what with our-" Geoff's eyelids flickered. "-history. I'll meet you at the pav and get you in. Trust me."

"Don't have much of a choice, do we?" said Wat, but he smiled anyway. 

Geoff leaned his head back on the door and tilted it to look at William. "Thatcher, you know you can't be seen on school grounds, don't you?"

"I know. I'll stand lookout by the gate. It's the least I can do. I can't tell you all how grateful I am for your help."

"Keep a hold of that until we've found what we need," said Kate. "Wait until we deserve it. What's our signal for 'Oh no, we're all going to die! Abort! Abort!'?"

"I can do a good wood pigeon," said Wat, and proceeded to prove his point with cupped hands and pursed lips.

Geoff raised his eyebrows. "Impressive, Wat. I almost imagined you'd grown feathers then."

Wat dropped his hands and grinned. "Got into it with a real one once. It didn't know if I wanted to fight it or fuck it. Proper confused it got."

Roland muttered something about it not always being birds that got confused and refused to repeat it when Wat asked. Wat gave him a soft elbow in the ribs and moved on. "So we're all agreed."

A chorus of nods.

"Kate, try to look less like a girl, yeah? You stand out."

"Normally I'd take offence, but seeing as how we're infiltrating an all male environment, I'll let you off this time."

"Thanks."

She grabbed Wat's nose. "With a warning."

"Thab you!" Wat repeated, swatting her hand away.

"I'll bring my camera," continued Kate, unperturbed, "and someone should have a carrier bag, just in case. Evidence collecting, you know? Notepad and pen for same? Who'll have that? Roland? Good."

"And it might be a good idea if we wore colours at least a little bit like the uniform, wouldn't you say? For disguise purposes, like. I mean, we can't none of us afford the quality material, but we can at least leave the flared denim at home, can't we? _Wat_? I think I've got a cardi just that shade of blue somewhere." Roland gave Geoff's uniform an appraising look, his finger and thumb rubbing together as if he ached to stroke the rich fabric. 

It takes all sorts, Wat thought, but said, "Good ideas. Right. So we'll meet by five fifteen at St Thomas's Church round the corner from the school. Not you, obviously, Geoff. I'd say synchronise watches, only Roland can't tell time anyway."

"Ha ha, very funny. It was five years ago and it was just the to times. Mind, I still think it'd be easier to have a hundred minutes in an hour."

"Be careful," Geoff said. "If this goes wrong it could spell trouble for all of us."

It wasn't until halfway through Wat's shift when he stopped a pile of glasses going down like dominoes through sheer luck that he realized that being caught in a caper could play havoc with Geoff's exams. He was a good bloke, was Geoff. A good bloke.

***

Kate's long, brown hair was swept up in a tight whatever-the-hell-that was called, her fringe pushed over one eye, and she wore William's school blazer with neat, grey trousers and shoes polished to a shine that could be dangerous if it caught the sun at the wrong angle. 

"Blimey. You make a hot boy," said Roland, who'd done his best with the cardi he'd dug out from the back of his wardrobe. Wat would never have known about the moth attack if Roland hadn't spent the last three minutes showing him every buggering last invisible darn.

Kate grinned and bobbed a curtsey. "I thought about a pair of socks. You know, down there." She indicated her groin and Wat and Roland resolutely refused to look, though Wat saw William steal a glance. "But then I thought what if they fell out at an inopportune moment? Can't go leaving my package behind."

Wat snorted. "If you'd have me, I'd marry you."

"You'd run a mile if I even so much as _hinted_ and you know it. But I love you, too. Non-maritally, of course."

"Is he late?" William looked at his watch and then back up at Wat, eyebrows knitted with anxiety. "Shouldn't the gate be open by now?"

"He'll be here."

"You sure about that?" Roland fidgeted with the buttons on his cardigan.

"He'll _be_ here." 

With that there was an audible scratch of metal on metal, a quiet click followed by a louder one and then the gate swung open just enough for the three of them to squeeze past. Wat was the last through. He put a hand on William's shoulder. "We're going to get this done, okay? Don't forget the pigeon. I'd say look innocent but that's your everyday face so…just do that then. If we're not out in half an hour, run."

"But…"

"Run, William. Okay?"

William nodded, lips tight.

"Good." Wat slipped through the gate, acknowledging Geoff with a tilt of his chin. "Let's go."

The playing field was a sweeping expanse of green interrupted only by three yellowing rectangles and white paint ellipses of a running track towards the far wall. The cricket pavilion sat squat some distance in front of the middle rectangle, its red brick at odds with the golden stone of the school rising up in the distance behind it. In one direction the field ran all the way up to the school building. In the other black tarmac scythed the edge of the grass into a sharp, neat line. There was not a soul to be seen and if he'd had more time Wat would've taken the opportunity to at least spit in the general direction of the bourgeoisie, but he had an urgent job on so his saliva would have to stay put. Whatever, he refused to be impressed.

"Follow me." Geoff led the way, striding purposefully across the field.

"Blimey. This isn't very stealthy, is it?" 

"Best not to look furtive, I always think. Look like you've a perfect right to be somewhere and people don't get suspicious."

"Tell that to the Metalwork teacher at my old school," muttered Kate. 

Wat squeezed her arm. It wasn't like Geoff was ever going to find out any different. What was the point in wasting breath explaining?

The pavilion door swung open easily, giving on to a large room. Each of the four walls was lined with a long, backless bench, two further pairs of benches splitting the room into thirds, metal frames studded with hooks between each pair. The scene of destruction was immediately evident. Against the far wall, a tall glass cabinet with shattered panes, a plinth missing its occupant on the middle shelf. There'd been an attempt to clean up the glass, but shards scattered around the base of the cabinet glinted in the sunlight that streamed through the low windows on either side. 

"Careful," said Roland. "It's not like we brought a First Aid kit."

Wat turned his head to study the wall on the left, covered in illegible blue graffiti. "This is shit. It don't even mean anything. It's just scribble."

"We're not here to score out of ten." Kate crossed the room, studying the wall, whilst Roland and Geoff went to examine the cabinet. Wat joined Kate, stepping up on to the bench and beginning to walk along it.

"Wait!"

Wat stopped, following Kate's pointing finger. She was indicating the bench, but he couldn't see anything out of place. Squatting, he looked closer. Tiny blue droplets speckled the wooden bench in random patterns except where Kate pointed. Here the droplets seemed to be doing their best to make one of those curvy graphs Wat had failed to ever grasp the point of to the constant despair of his Maths teacher. Below the curve was an area clear of the spray. 

"Here, too, see." Kate pointed at a similar curve a short distance away. "You get what this is, right?" She jumped up onto the bench and fit her shoes into the curves as if she was getting her feet measured in Clarks. "He stood here. There's no way his shoes got away clean." She grinned, leaping back down. "And neither will he. Camera."

"Clever girl," said Wat, unhooking his rucksack and digging into it for the camera and handing it over. "Assuming he hasn't cleaned the things yet."

"Oh, he doesn't polish his own shoes." Geoff's voice floated over. "He has someone do that for him. It's not officially sanctioned these days, but there are still younger boys who can be, ah, persuaded to minion for the older ones. I happen to know that Adam's little shadow has been in San for a couple of days so odds are in our favour that the shoes remain compromised."

"What if they're on his feet?" Wat hopped down and skirted behind Kate, avoiding accidental stardom. 

"He's vindictive, not stupid."

"Well," said Roland, "he's a little bit stupid. See here on the glass? That's blood, that is. He only went and cut hisself. I hope it hurt."

"You sure?"

"That or he was eating a sausage sandwich and the ketchup got away from him. Look at it yourself if you don't believe me. Kate, when you're finished being all David Bailey over there, come and snap this, will you?"

Wat peered at the jagged glass. Sure enough, there was a thin brownish smear tracking down its edge, darkening where it thickened at the end. "Shame he didn't hack a limb off. Still, he's not Superman, can't hide a cut."

Click, went the camera and click again, as Kate took shots from various angles. 

"We need to get going." Geoff glanced at his watch. "The last thing we want is to get caught in the post dinner swarm. Come on."

Kate clipped the lens cap back on the camera and dropped it back in Wat's rucksack, zipping him up. They followed as Geoff led them across the field and around the corner of the school. Behind it were a series of three smaller buildings, all the same butter gold as the school, a broad porch with the lintel painted a different colour on each.

"Boarding houses," Geoff explained and then didn't speak again as he led them to the front door of the red lintel house. 

"We're just gonna…walk in?" 

"Indeed we are."

"Are you broken in the head? Someone'll see us."

Geoff turned and grinned, walking backwards into the gloom of the house. "When I said everyone had to attend dinner, I mean everyone. This house is as a ghost town. But we need to be quick. Hurry."

"Right you are, then." Wat shrugged. He might not get to be James Bond, but if it got the job done, then so be it. "Roland. Skulk about here on lookout, will you?"

Roland's face told Wat how very much he didn't want to do that, but he did his best to fade into the shadows at the back of the porch. Kate and Wat followed Geoff into the house. Ahead of them a wide, shallow staircase rose up with doors lining the corridors that crowded in either side. They took the stairs two at a time, the thuds of three pairs of feet seeming particularly loud to Wat's ears despite the carpeting. 

"Up again," said Geoff at the top.

A narrow corridor led away from the stairs to the back of the house, a tall window rising at the end of it. 

"You two go on up. I'll keep lookout here. Roland's got the front covered, but we don't want any sneak attacks from the rear, do we?"

Wat nodded his agreement and followed Geoff up the second set of stairs and back on themselves to Adam's room. 

"After you." Geoff swung the door open.

It was a narrow room, but still managed to give out an air of studied luxury. A single bed was set along one wall, the eiderdown covering it a shiny material that looked as though it would melt under Wat's touch. Shelves stood above it, holding more trophies than books, with a locker standing next to the bed and under a small window hung with thick curtains. A writing desk and wardrobe of richly coloured, polished wood took up the other wall. Not a paper was out of place. On the desk books were neatly piled with a pen laid exactly parallel to them. Apart from the trophies and one photograph in a gilt frame of an unsmiling couple, Wat couldn't grasp any sense of personality in the room. It felt empty, like it was still waiting for its real occupant to show up and give it a good time.

Wat clapped his hands together. "Right. Where do we start?"

"You try the wardrobe, I'll search the locker."

The wardrobe was split into two sections. On the one side clothing hung from a rail in regimented ranks and on the other a series of drawers ran the height of the wardrobe. Underneath the shirts and trousers stood neatly paired footwear in two rows, gaps in their ranks. This proved nothing except that Orr had shoes on his feet, but it felt like something. No sign of the paint can, though. Wat balked at shoving his hands in Orr's underpants drawer, but needs must when the devil was barrelling along in a black cab. He dropped to his haunches and was just pulling open the bottom drawer when Geoff called out.

"Bingo!"

Wat shoved the drawer back in, letting the wardrobe doors fall closed with a thump. Geoff stood over him brandishing a can of spray paint, dribbles of blue running down the side and with one squashed, partial but most definitely visible fingerprint on the curve underneath the nozzle. Bloody brilliant.

"May I present the smoking gun?" Geoff grinned and then the grin vanished as they heard the sound of a door being lightly slammed and then footsteps coming towards them along the corridor. "Shit!" Geoff mouthed and pushed Wat's shoulder, frantically shoving him towards the bed. 

Wat took the hint and scrambled underneath, closely followed by Geoff, the tight space crushing their bodies together. Wat's chin scraped painfully along the carpet and he breathed in sharply in response, nose filling with long forgotten dust finally glad to have something to do. He started to twitch, desperately repressing the sneeze trying to force its way out. Geoff's arm snaked around his shoulders and he put his hand over Wat's mouth, thumb hooked over the end of Wat's nose. Wat's heart sped as he fought against the sneeze, fought to get a breath, and it seemed to him that it beat so loudly that even Roland, waiting out on the porch, could hear it. He pushed his tongue against his front teeth, willing the urge to sneeze away. To his surprise it worked, but that still left the whole thing where he couldn't breathe and that, Wat thought, was not a viable long-term option. Arms trapped by the wall and Geoff's body Wat did the only thing his oxygen-deprived brain could conjure up and licked Geoff's palm. Immediately Geoff relaxed the pressure, tweaking Wat's nose between finger and thumb before releasing it, but he kept his hand where it was. Wat took in a careful, grateful breath and considered licking again, only that was when the world took a lurching step to the right.

From close quarters a thin, high-pitched voice said, "You should come out. You'll get terribly dusty under there. I sha'n't tell."

Wat managed to turn his head, startled by how big Geoff's head was so close up. Geoff managed to indicate a shrug with his eyebrows and then slid his hand away, finger catching on Wat's earlobe as he went. Getting out was somehow trickier than getting under and Wat nearly lost a clump of hair to a persistent bed spring, but finally he was on his feet, looking at a nondescript boy of about William's age, with pallid skin and mousy hair and pale eyes that managed to look haunted and expressionless at the same time.

"Who the fuck are you?" 

"Manners," said Geoff as the boy flinched. "This is Germaine."

"Right." Wat calculated the chances of taking this kid down hard enough to get away before he yelled blue murder. It looked pretty good he had to say.

"He's the boy I was telling you about. You know, with the shoes. It seems he has made a rude return to health."

Geoff had the spray can still clutched in one hand and Wat saw Germaine take that in, a small shift in his expression. 

"Shoes," he said. "Oh!" The weasel face transformed as a smile spread across the kid's face. He clasped his hands together. "The can. The shoes. You want to…oh, let me help you."

"Beg your fucking pardon?" Wat's calculations screeched to a halt.

"I hate him. I hate him. He _knows_ things, you see, and he makes me…and I hate him. I know what he did and I know what you want. Let me show you."

Wat had nothing to go on here. Was the kid on the up and up or was this some ruse to find the deepest shit and drop them all in it? And if his gut wasn't giving him anything to trust then he only had one choice. "Geoff?"

Geoff nodded. "Okay, kid, take us to it."

"They're in my dorm. This way."

They retraced their footsteps down the stairs, Kate looking up from her position by the window. She saw Germaine and frowned, coming towards them.

"Call yourself a lookout? Thought no one could put anything past you, smarty-pants."

Kate opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a soft cough from Germaine. 

"I've been upstairs all the time. I'm supposed to be resting on my bed, but I was in the House Prefect's Room." His cheeks flushed. "They have interesting things to read."

"Ha!" 

"All right, I'm sorry. Can we go?"

"This way." Germaine opened a door on the right of the staircase and beckoned them in. 

Unlike Orr's, this room was a shared dorm with six beds and assorted furniture neatly tessellated like a real life jigsaw. Though the beds were neatly made and the surfaces tidy and clean, the atmosphere was almost homely. Given the choice between sleeping by himself in Orr's soulless pit or mucking in with a bunch of kids in this place, Wat knew he'd take the smell of teenage feet any day. Germaine walked over to his bedside locker, opened it and pulled out a pair of Dunlop tennis shoes. He held them up.

"I think this is what you want. Please, take them."

Kate took them from him, scrutinizing them. She rubbed her thumb over the toe of one and then inspected her thumb pad. 

"Well?" Wat shifted towards her and then back towards the door, aware that they were a lookout down.

"Got him." 

"Hallefuckinglujah. Now let's get the hell out of here, yeah?"

Geoff frowned. "He'll know it was you, Germaine."

The kid, still kneeling, nodded. "Sometimes you have to do the right thing even if it'll hurt. Besides, there are only a few weeks of term left. I'll manage."

Wat's world view took another dint to the side and he blurted out, "Thanks, kid. You're gonna need some new trousers with balls that big."

Kate rolled her eyes, offered her own thanks and pulled Wat out of the room. Leaving Germaine where he was, the three amateur detectives ran down the stairs and out of the door. Roland stepped out of the shadows.

"So?"

In answer Geoff held up the can and Kate the shoes.

"Bang to rights, then, the bugger," Roland said, folding his arms with evident satisfaction.

"Quick march," said Geoff. "Let's get to that gate before we celebrate, shall we?"

But they were a relaxed group as they walked back across the playing field, even if they didn't have much to say to each other. Too relaxed, because no one noticed the bald headed man in green dungarees rounding the front of the school and heading straight for them.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

Four heads whipped round in unison, Roland letting out a small yelp of fright. The man loped towards them, round belly wobbling as he gathered speed.

"Bomb it!" yelled Wat and they streaked towards the gate. 

The man yelled bloody murder behind them, but was no match for four sets of young legs, even if Roland thought exercise was something best kept to pianos and human rights. They made it out with a clear twenty feet behind them, grabbing a shocked looking William as they pelted back up the road. 

Two minutes found them back in the church graveyard collapsed in a heap, panting and pawing at clothes that were far too hot for this malarkey. 

"Are you all okay?" William sounded anxious and Wat emerged from his fight with his shirt long enough to reassure him.

"We're good, William. Better'n good. We got exactly what we need and tomorrow is gonna be a great day for you. Told you we could do it."

And then the fight with the shirt got a whole lot worse as William launched himself at the four of them, trying to hug them all at the same time.

"You're not an _octopus_ ," complained Kate, but Wat didn't have to see her face to know she loved every second of it.

Two ice-lollies and a short ride later, Wat solemnly handed over the rucksack, now stuffed with all the evidence, over to Geoff as they stood outside his house.

"Don't lose it."

Geoff swung the bag up on one shoulder and said nothing. Instead he lifted a hand to Wat's face, touching his chin lightly with his fingertip. 

"What?" Personal space, mate. Heard of it? Wat didn't say.

"Does it hurt?"

"Does what hurt?"

"In the war between man and artificial fibre, Adam's carpet won, I'm afraid. That looks nasty."

It took Wat a moment to find two and two and put them together. He'd forgotten the injury, only remembering the consequences. His heart thumped in an echo of memory and he became aware of a tingling sensation in his chin that wasn't exactly painful but wasn't exactly not either. He shook his head, pushing Geoff's hand away. 

"Nah. Probably looks worse than it is. I don't bruise easy."

"Lucky," said Geoff. "I do."

"Course you do, posh boy. No peas under your mattress, eh?"

"I have Father's secretary check every night just in case." Geoff re-shouldered the rucksack. "Do you, er, do you want to stay for dinner?"

"Standing date with Roland and the chippy."

"Oh," said Geoff, and Wat felt compelled to add,

"You could come one time if you like."

Geoff brightened. "Sounds good. Look, I'll call you the second I know anything. It's better to go through Prince, trust me. You're just as likely to hear from William before me."

"Call me whatever."

"Absolutely."

All the way home Wat couldn't shake the feeling that he'd forgotten to do something. Oh, well, they'd done what they'd set out to do and that would have to be enough. Besides, there was a battered sausage out there with his name on it.

***

The joyful battering at Wat's door the next afternoon was all he needed to know everything had been put back the way it was supposed to be. William's face shone with so much happiness he might as well have been the sun itself. 

"You'll come to the match, won't you, Wat?" 

Wat tried to scowl and failed. "Watch a bunch of posers standing about and clapping each other?" Before William's face could fall, he added, "'Course I will, you pillock. Me and your dad, we'll be clapping loudest of everyone."

If William grinned any harder, he'd grin the top of his head right off, Wat thought.

The thing about parents was that it was fucking annoying when they were right. And it was even worse when it was other people's parents showing you up. Mr Thatcher had said the black t-shirt and jeans were a mistake, had even offered a hat, but Wat had no intention of looking like a wanker so he'd waved it off with his best charm-the-grown-ups smile. 

"On your own head be it," Mr Thatcher had said. "And by that, I mean the heatstroke."

He was in a good mood, was Mr Thatcher. Didn't stop chatting about how William was apparently some cross between an angel and the next ruler of the known universe the whole way to the school. At least, that's what Wat got out of it. He wondered if Mr Thatcher had got so verbal as a way to locate himself when he couldn't see so well. Like a dolphin.

He was also spot-on about the heat issue. Wat's face was probably going the same colour as his hair and he had to have lost at least three pounds in sweat and for what? So far the game had passed much in a blur. Boys in white ran about a bit, got grass stains on their knees that would annoy their mums if they had the type of mums that did their own laundry, and he only had to duck to avoid a ball rocketing towards his head twice. Mr Thatcher was chuffed to bits, though, every time William knocked over the stick thingies, so as much as Wat hated to admit it, being roasted alive was kind of worth it.

At one point the sticks went flying, a huge cheer went up, and everyone jogged off the field. Wat stood up. 

"Did we win?"

Mr Thatcher shook his head. "We bowled them out. Next, we bat. 147 to win."

"So we can't go home."

"Not yet. Here." And William's dad took his hat off and crammed it on Wat's head. "Take a break, sunshine."

Wat wasn't going to admit even to himself that it was an improvement, but he did manage to open his eyes from a squint for the first time since they'd sat down. Immediately he saw Geoff, inching his way through the cross-legged students crowding the edges of the field, tall, dark-haired guy who looked like he'd stepped out of the pages of _Kay's_ catalogue in tow.

Wat flipped through a few choice remarks on the little red balls and public school boys and was disgruntled when Geoff stuck his arm out past him and shook Mr Thatcher's hand.

"Mr Thatcher, it's a pleasure to meet you, sir. I'm Geoffrey Chaucer, friend to this reprobate here," He indicated Wat with a jerk of his head and then turned his attention to his friend. "This is Edward Prince, Head Boy of this fine institution. I believe you wanted to meet the man who helped to clear William's reputation. Well, then, here he is."

Edward also stuck his hand out past Wat. Wat took a step back and scowled.

"William's a great kid, Mr Thatcher. But then you knew that already, of course." His smile was brilliant and Wat could see Mr Thatcher responding to it, standing straighter and smiling back. It would be so easy to be sucked in, but Wat was no posh boy's lapdog, no matter how perfect his hair or teeth. 

And then Edward turned his attention on Wat. "And you're Wat. Chaucer here has told me all about you and your intrepid band of sleuths. Thank you. You did a good thing, not only for your friend, but also for the school. William brings so much to our community." The blazing smile was transferred to Wat and he took Wat's hand in both of his, shaking it warmly. 

Helpless, Wat looked at Geoff, whose knowing expression made Wat want to punch him in the nose. "It wasn't nothing he wouldn't do for me."

"Still," said Edward, giving Wat his hand back, "It was brave."

"Indeed it was." Mr Thatcher patted Wat's arm. "But I only know their part and our William's reinstatement. I'd like to hear what happened in between if you don't mind."

"I merely acted as the intermediary. Chaucer knows that I'm lucky enough to have the ear of the Head Master so he passed the evidence to me. The old fellow's a raging fanatic when it comes to the Gentleman's Game. It wasn't too hard to convince him of the right thing to do."

"And the boy who caused all the trouble?"

"Ah, well. It was decided he shouldn't mess up his exams, so he's still in the school, but on isolation. The second the pen is down on his last paper he'll be escorted from the premises, believe me. It's exactly what he deserves."

Mr Thatcher frowned. "You don't think it's a little harsh?"

"It's the lack of honour, sir. Vandalising and stealing is bad enough, but setting up another chap for your own gain? That shouldn't ever stand."

"Well, as long as my boy's happy, I'm happy."

"And so are we. Come along, Chaucer, I need to make sure the opposition are satisfied with their tea." He produced one last dazzling smile, nodding to Wat and Mr Thatcher. "Enjoy the rest of the match and thank you for your support."

They walked off but not before Geoff flicked the brim of Wat's hat. "Looking good there," he said and Wat hurriedly took it off and stuffed it back on Mr Thatcher's head.

"Nobber," muttered Wat.

Mr Thatcher patted his arm again and said nothing.

***


	4. Chapter 4

Wat didn't see much of Geoff for the next few weeks. Last minute cramming and exams put the kibosh on the bike maintenance classes and the mandatory dicking about playing LPs and scoffing at each other's taste that followed. Wat usually had to work a shift on Saturday, so it wasn't like he had nothing to do, but some days he'd be past The Phoenix and halfway up the road to the posh end of town before he remembered where he was supposed to be going. Muscle memory, he reasoned.

It was a sweltering late-June afternoon and Wat was lying in his room, curtains drawn and half-naked, wondering if he could get up the energy for a quick hand shandy when his mum called up the stairs.

"Wat! Phone! It's that Geoff!"

Wat was out of the door and down the stairs before he remembered his current state of undress and the fact that his undies didn't leave much to the imagination. He shrugged. His mum had seen worse, that was for sure. Years ago Wat had run into his dad naked one night after a bath. It'd left a scar. 

She handed him the phone with a tut and a sharp, "Put some clothes on, you beggar." Wat stuck his tongue out and waited until she'd retreated to the kitchen before putting the receiver to his ear.

"All right?"

"No clothes at all, Wat? And in the middle of the day? That's positively scandalous."

"Got Y-fronts on, haven't I? I'm not shaking my thing at my mum. Give her a heart attack, that would."

Geoff laughed. "Definitely don't kill your mother. Do as she says, put some clothes on and come over. Or don't put the clothes on. I'm sure the neighbours would be delighted to enjoy the show. But either way come over."

"Why?"

"Last paper is done and dusted, my dear man. I'm a free agent until September! I need to celebrate and I need someone to do it with and you, it would appear, are it."

Wat's tut was almost identical to his mother's. "Do I get a choice?"

"Are you working tonight?"

"No."

"Then no. You don't have a choice. Now go and get dressed and get over here, will you? I'm already into Mother's sherry and it's a little pathetic to be drinking alone."

"It's four o'clock."

"Yes. And your point is?"

"I'm putting my shorts on. See you in twenty."

The gate through to the garden was open when Wat arrived. There were no cars in the drive, nor any other sign of life. He leaned his bike up against the wall and went up the steps. He knocked on the door and waited. There was no answer, not even the pitter-patter of not so tiny feet. He knocked again. Nothing. It was too soon for Geoff to have drunk himself to death, right? He knocked one more time, pushing the letterbox open and shouting through it. Still nothing.

With a thoughtful tap of his fingers on the door, Wat jogged down the steps and round to the garden gate. He'd never been this way before; there'd never been any need. The path led down the side of the house and opened up onto a patio populated with white furniture that looked so delicate that it would collapse under the weight of a poop from a passing bird. Geoff was not there, either. The lawn itself was immaculately kept, each blade of grass at the same regimented height and angle. Wat took malicious pleasure in squashing it under his feet. 

A whoop echoed out from the far end of the garden. Wat swivelled round. In the shade of two tall trees was a summerhouse, the glass doors flung wide open. Geoff lounged against one frame, dressed in what looked like Wat's mum's best slip, pale pink and shiny, bottle clenched in a raised fist. Wat shook his head.

"What are you like?" he called.

"I'm free, baby! I'm free! Get over here." Geoff pushed himself upright and raised his other arm and to his surprise Wat found himself jogging across and grabbing Geoff in a hug.

"Good job getting through it, you swot," he said, knuckling Geoff's head before letting go. 

Geoff staggered a little, taking a couple of steps backwards and flopping into a cushioned wicker chair. It didn't look easy to get out of. 

"Thank you," he said, looking up at Wat. A slow smile spread across his face. "Nice shorts."

"Shut up." Wat tugged the green shorts down at the edges. It made no difference.

"No, it's just that I thought that the jeans and t-shirt were surgically attached to your body. Finally proof that you have legs and not tentacles or robot limbs."

"Seriously, shut up."

"Nice pins. You have the strong thighs of a cyclist."

"I will kill you." Wat swiped the bottle from Geoff's hand and took a long swig. "That's disgusting," he choked, and took another one. "Also, you're in a dress." A dress that barely covered Geoff's modesty, not that Wat was paying that any attention.

"Negligee, darling. I thought if I was getting in to Mother's booze, then I should get into character entirely so I rifled through her lingerie drawer. I think I rather suit silk." He crossed his legs and smoothed down the material, raising his eyebrows at Wat as if in a dare.

"Bit gappy in the boob department." Wat refused to get pulled in to whatever this was. Who was to say what all that studying had shaken loose? Stood to reason you'd want to go a bit mad after. "Here, we're not drinking this bollocks all night. What else you got?"

"I'm glad you asked." 

Wat followed the sweep of Geoff's arm to a bucket filled with ice and three bottles of champagne. He whistled. "Now you're talking."

Two and a half bottles later and Wat finally thought to ask, "Why aren't you celebrating with your folks?"

Geoff paused in his attempts to apply nail varnish to Wat's resigned hand. "I suppose they don't think the finishing is important. It's the results that matter, after all. They're what'll put me into seventh term and that's what I need if I'm to go to Cambridge."

"Oh." Wat twisted his wrist to give Geoff better access. "I think this matters. If you were to ask me, like."

Geoff looked up and, though it was a long time before nightfall yet, Wat couldn't read his face. "They probably want a last hoorah with their friends anyway. They're taking me to France tomorrow."

"France?"

"We have a house in the Dordogne. We summer there every year. So off we toddle tomorrow for weeks of sunburn, red wine and bickering about who lost the boule set this time. Obviously, I can't wait."

"You summer there?" Last time Wat checked, summer was a noun. It was over there with spring, autumn and winter, busy being seasonal.

"It used to be the whole summer," Geoff continued, unperturbed by Wat's confusion. "But Father can't spare the time any more, so we'll only be away a month. At least the de Roets will be there, so I won't be inclined to draw a period to my existence through sheer boredom, but I'll miss you."

"A month?" The champagne was making Wat slow to catch up. He took another swig in the hopes that would clear things up. "From tomorrow?" It didn't work.

"There. Wave your hand in the air to dry it." Geoff put the brush back in the nail varnish bottle and tightened the cap. Wat did as he was told. "Yes, a month. Yes, from tomorrow. Yes, I'm sorry for ducking out on you again. I'm a terrible friend."

Wat looked at his hand as he waved it, his nails leaving blurry trails of colour in the air. "You're not." 

"I'm glad you think so."

There was something in the tone of Geoff's voice that made Wat look at him sharply, or as sharply as he could through the alcohol haze. Geoff tilted his head, gazing at Wat like he was a puzzle that could be solved. Wat was working on a champagne-blunted retort when Geoff reached out, cupping Wat's jaw, leaned in, and kissed him. The kiss was soft and gentle and more like a question than anything. Still on a go slow, it took Wat's brain some time to catch on to what was happening, but when it did he flung himself backwards as if he'd been scalded, scrabbling to his feet.

"What was that? What the hell was that about? What did you… _What_?"

Geoff shrugged. "I just wanted to try it. It doesn't matter." He looked away. "Do you think I should paint my toenails to shock the oldsters at the swimming pool? I think I should. But what colour? Hmmm." 

Wat stared. Geoff sat on the floor of the summerhouse, lips stained scarlet from his mother's lipstick, her negligee rucked so far up Geoff's legs that Wat could catch glimpses of red underwear. He was sorting through the bottles of nail varnish, long toes curling and uncurling. Poofter, thought Wat, and then touched his fingers to his lips.

"Help me choose, would you, Wat? Father would hate this hot pink, but I think Mother would hate me using the expensive ones more."

Against his better judgement, Wat re-joined Geoff on the floor. "Bit of everything, maybe? Hedge your bets."

Geoff laughed. "Yes, you'd think that would work, wouldn't you?" He held out the champagne bottle. "Drink up. It's getting warm in here."

Whose fault is that, Wat didn't say. He rubbed a sweaty palm against his shorts.

Wat finally staggered away home past midnight, having moved from the bubbles to the hard stuff some time before. Geoff waved him off with a beatific smile promising postcards and to phone when he got back. He didn't try to kiss Wat again, didn't mention it once. Didn't give him even so much as a parting hug. 

He called, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," down the garden as Wat retreated.

"Yeah, well I don't even know what that is any more," Wat muttered under his breath and forced himself not to look back.

The first time he nearly got knocked off his bike on the way home, Wat blamed the alcohol. The second time he admitted to himself that all he was thinking about was how Geoff's lips had felt against his. He smacked himself in the forehead for being an idiot and shoved it away into the darkest place of his mind never to think about it again. Geoff was a mate. Mates didn't kiss mates, so it had never happened. Quod ate the other thing.

***

Wat woke up with a dry mouth, an unpleasant knot in his stomach and the thought he'd squashed down the previous night bouncing wildly around his head. What did he mean, "it doesn't matter?" Of _course_ it mattered. Geoff _kissed_ him. On the _mouth_. With his _face_. How was that supposed to not matter? Why did he want to go and spoil everything? What had Wat ever done to give him the idea that he was up for being snogged? By a bloke. By _Geoff_. 

The familiar tingle of fury in his fingertips was comforting in an odd way. Everything was okay as long as he knew where his anger was and it was all present and correct, fizzing through every part of his body, calling it to attention. He'd go straight back round there and give that boy a piece of his mind, is what he'd do. Except Geoff wouldn't be there. He'd be on his way to the Doing Doing or whatever it was. He punched the wall with the side of his fist, his eye catching the blur of purple on his thumbnail. 

Wat kicked out, ankle colliding with the windowsill. "Ow!" See? One kiss and the result was broken bones. Obviously this was going nowhere good.

He dragged himself out of bed, stomping into the bathroom and rooting through the medicine cabinet for his mum's nail varnish remover. The polish smeared across his fingers as he cleaned them inexpertly and he swore under his breath, scrubbing at his hands until every last trace of Geoff's handiwork was gone. The sickly smell of the liquid filled the small bathroom and Wat's stomach heaved. He shoved the bottle back in the cabinet, avoiding his reflection as he shut the door. He pulled out his dick and let out a long stream of piss, taking savage pleasure in how it soaked the purple-stained paper clinging to the side of the bowl. Then he flushed the toilet, watching the tissue swirl and disappear. That was that, then. Except for how he still wanted to beat the world to a pulp. Except for how there was still a ghost impression of Geoff's kiss on his lips.

Wat scowled his way through tea and toast, through a perfunctory wash around the key areas, pulling on his clothes and biking the short distance to Kate's house.

"You're not coming in here with a face like that," she said.

"Then come out here."

"Wat."

"Kate."

"Am I going to regret letting you in?" She shook her head. "Who am I kidding? Of course I am. I'm already behind my revision schedule just looking at you."

"Kate. Please." Wat's fingers dug into his thighs.

"Hmm." Kate took a step back, letting Wat in. "Not the kitchen, I think," she said. "Too many sharp objects. It looks like we should probably not risk that."

"I'm not going to stab myself."

"It wasn't you I was worried about."

Wat cracked a smile at that and Kate smiled back. "See, I knew you could still do it. Come through."

He sat on her parents' brown couch, huge orange flowers threatening to swallow him up, and couldn't think of how to begin.

After a long minute, she stood up and said, "Well, if you aren't going to spit it out, I'll go and fetch my textbook. You compose your ode to an elf you saw drinking milk on the doorstep or whatever the bloody fuck is happening in your head and I'll loop back in when you start declaiming. Okay?"

Wat caught her wrist and tugged her back down. "Don't. Okay, it's…We were drunk, so there was- And I even let him with the nails, but I never…" He looked across at the wall, at the photograph of a younger Kate wedged between her parents, all of them laughing. It seemed so harmless, so normal. He twisted his fingers in the couch cushions and swallowed. 

"Geoff kissed me." His voice came out higher than expected so he cleared his throat and tried again. "He kissed me."

"Huh." Kate pulled her wrist away and folded her arms tight across her body. "He kissed you, you say? Let me think." She closed her eyes and Wat stared at her as if he could peel away the layers of skin and bone and read what was inside. She nodded, opening her eyes again. "Yes, I can see how that could work. Did you like it?"

Wat had no clue what he'd been expecting, but it was something more than this thoughtful, measured response. Did he like it? That wasn't the point. The point was the violation of the sacred bonds of mateship and whatever and Geoff had a dick and it wasn't right.

"Wow, you talk a lot of shite. The key point is did you like it?"

Wat felt the heat wash over his body, his muscles tensing, his cheeks flushing. This was the old faithful fury, only there was another insistent sensation, hot, too, but a different buzz, low and deep, an uncomfortable, squirming pressure. He squeezed his eyes tight and shook his head.

"Well, then, that's easy enough. Just tell him you're not interested. Of course, unless you're having trouble with the truth." Kate paused. "Which you probably are."

Wat leapt to his feet. "This is so fucking _easy_ for you, isn't it? Laughing at the idiot? This is a big fucking deal, okay? He kissed me and I l- I don't want to be a poofter, all right? Who would choose that?"

"You know what?" said Kate, getting up. "I don't need your crap. You're blowing this all out of proportion. It was one kiss. One. It's not a lifetime commitment. So maybe you fancy blokes. Maybe you don't. Relax, snog some more people, work it out. The world won't end. Try being a woman one time if you want problems. I'm going to get grade 1 in maths and all my sciences, but can I get an engineering apprenticeship? Can I hell. No one wants a clever girl. So what do I get to do now, hey? Take some shitty secretarial job because nice girls type? Get married at twenty-one and pop out four kids by the time I'm twenty-five? No way. Go away, Wat. Go home and consider your fucking options. Or your options for fucking. At least you have some."

Stunned, Wat didn't resist as Kate shoved him out through the front door. It slammed behind him and he found himself shouting his apologies through the letterbox.

"You don't even know why you're saying sorry," she yelled back.

Maybe he didn't, but he was sorry anyway. 

He was sorry all the way to Roland's house where Roland's mum let him in with a bright smile.

"Up you go, Wat, lad," she said. "And tell the daft sod that I can hear the machine going and he's to take his foot off that pedal before I cut it off. That exam isn't going to pass itself. And don't you go keeping him too long, either."

"I won't, Mrs Delves. Promise." Wat took the stairs at a mild jog.

Roland had his mum's Singer on a rickety table below the window. He hummed as he pushed material under the juddering needle, his leg bouncing as he pumped the pedal. Wat leaned against the doorframe and rummaged in his pockets, finding a crumpled up receipt. That would do. He wadded it up and aimed it with care at Roland's head. 

The humming and needle came to an abrupt halt. Roland swung round.

"Do you _want_ me to sew myself to corduroy?"

"Not especially." Wat shoved himself upright for all of the two strides it took for him to cross to Roland's bed and flop stomach down on top of it. "Your mum said to get on with your work. She can hear you, you divvy."

Roland shrugged. "It's Civics. I don't even need to pass it. I'm going to be counting yards of fabric, not how many MPs it takes to change a light bulb. I want to get this pinafore finished for Kate. Cheer her up."

"Not you, too," said Wat with a twinge of guilt. Perhaps he should have been paying better attention.

"Not me too what?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Did you come here not to matter all over my clean sheets or is there something I can do for you? Run you up a t-shirt in an actual colour, perhaps?"

Wat pulled Roland's pillow over his face and said into it, "Geoff kissed me." It was easier this time.

Roland's reply sounded an awful lot like, "Took him long enough," but it couldn't have been, could it? Wat threw the pillow on the floor.

"I said, Geoff kissed me."

"I heard. Did you punch him?"

Now that was more like it. Wat pushed himself up on his elbows. "No. D'you think I should have?"

Roland's foot went back on the pedal, fingers deftly feeding the material to the hungry machine. "Not really. I mean, not for that."

"What d'you mean not for that?"

Roland ignored the question. "He's liked you for ages, you know. You've got bricks for brains, you, if you missed it."

"We're _friends_ , of course he likes me."

"Bricks. Definitely bricks. But you didn't punch him so…So what? Did you kiss him back?"

"No."

"Hmm. Didn't punch him, didn't kiss him back. I didn't think you did anything in the whole grey spectrum range. I'm confused now."

"Not as confused as I am." Wat tucked his knees up to his chest and put his head down, hands pressing down on top of it.

"Okay," said Roland, and Wat really didn't appreciate the hint of laughter that embroidered the simple word. He growled. It seemed the safest response.

"Right, so let's work this one out, shall we? What do you think about when you, er, you know, when you polish the family jewels? Lasses?"

Wat's cheeks heated and it wasn't only from being upside down. He didn't do it that often, getting off. There was an itch he needed to scratch sometimes and so he did, but according to Roland and the other lads at the PRU he should have had his hand down his pants at every available opportunity and some that weren't really available on top of that. But it had just never seemed that important.

"I don't really think about much," he said, face still buried against his knees. "I mean, I don't even know that many girls, do I? Being at the PRU all that time. Sort of makes the wanking pool a bit small, doesn't it? I just…do it. Might think about what I'm having for my tea or…" He trailed off because he'd been just about to take himself in hand the day before when Geoff had called. And the only thing on his mind other than the potential pleasure of coming had been the ongoing argument he and Geoff were having about whether _Queen II_ counted as glam or metal. That and Geoff's stupid, grinning face belting out _Seven Seas of Rhye_ so loud they could probably hear him over in Mercury's fantasy land. 

Wat couldn't help himself. He smiled, remembering the way the record had skipped as Geoff crashed to his knees as the song ramped up to the bridge, throwing out his arms wide and declaring along with Freddie, "Mister, do and I'll die. You are mine, I possess you, I belong to you forever!" The low down buzz was back, the pressure forcing itself up and out, making him wish he was on his own so he could…so he could… _Jesus_. He fell sideways, curling himself into a tight ball and groaned.

"Exactly how fucked are you?" Roland asked with far too much cheer than the situation called for.

"A lot. Probably. No. Oh, bollocks."

"Pop round, then. Sort it out. Then we can all go on with our lives and I won't have to spend any more of my precious time watching the tragic mating dance of a heron and an overlarge goldfish."

"I can't. The heron's on holiday for a month."

"Even better. Let it settle. See how you're doing in a few weeks and Bob's your wotsit. It's not…We're best friends, you and me, Wat. I'll love you whatever, but others might not be so easy, so think on. No point doing anything half-cocked. Or hearted."

"You've been a great help," Wat said, uncurling himself and not meeting Roland's eye as he sat up. "No, really." And even though his voice was laden with sarcasm, Wat thought that maybe somewhere, on some level, he actually meant it.

***

The first postcard arrived four days later. The picture on the front was a bunch of cyclists in multi-coloured jerseys all looking fierce with concentration, the words 'Le Tour' stamped bright yellow across the top. Wat turned it over and squinted at Geoff's untidy scrawl. As far as he could tell it read, "Bet you wish you could ride like these guys. Get into training, bike boy." There was no signature and for some reason the word wish was underlined. Wat tutted, but propped the postcard up on his shelf anyway. 

The second postcard came another week down the road. A week in which Wat had spent so much time staring at the cyclists that he could have probably drawn them from memory. This one was a view of sunlight sparkling off a wide river. Geoff had written, "It's not as tranquil as you might think. Hidden currents run deep. So far managing not to get swept away." This time the 'you' was underlined. Wat frowned at it and stuck it next to the first one.

Seven days later and Wat's mum pounded on his door. "Turn that racket down, will you? Post's here."

Wat twisted the volume knob to the level he'd long worked out was the upper limit of his parents' patience and yanked open the door, snatching the postcard from his mum's raised hand. Before he could slam it closed again she had her shoulder through the small gap and she had him stuck.

"I'm not telling you again about the music," said his mum, her mouth twisting on the last word. Wat smirked. He was under no illusions as to her opinion on his musical taste. Oldsters. All the same. 

"I mean it, Wat. You're upsetting the cat. She's cowering in the larder, poor thing. It's anti-social. At least in my day rebellion had a tune and a beat to it."

Wat forced himself not to roll his eyes. "Sorry."

His mum looked at him long and hard and Wat couldn't hold the eye contact, sliding his gaze down to the postcard in his hand.

"You are all right, son?"

"Yes, mum."

"You know you can talk to me. Or your dad, whatever he's like sometimes."

"Yes, mum."

"You want me to go away and leave you alone, don't you?"

Wat did catch her eye, then. He grinned. "Yes, mum."

She sighed with a shake of her head, but retreated all the same. Wat shut the door behind her back with less force than he'd originally been going for, leaned on it and looked at the postcard. The picture was of some kind of jalopy race, the cars dinged up and rusted, but still kicking up a hell of a dust. He turned it over. "They were a sight to see. Something beautiful in their refusal to give in, don't you think?" it said. Geoff had underlined the 'were'. Almost without realizing what he was doing, Wat traced the writing with a fingertip, letting the image of Geoff hunched over and scribbling swim behind his eyes. And then his attention snapped back to the here and now with the full stinging force of a mental elastic band and Wat swore under his breath. _Wish you were._

The post came and went the following week with nothing at all for Wat. He watched the postman crossing the road and exchanging pleasantries with old Mr Morris and bit down the obscenities bubbling up in his throat. Making it the postie's fault wasn't going to change anything. He stomped over to the shelves and took down the postcards, reading them again, as if anything had changed. Who did Geoff think he was with his wish and his you and his were? Wish Wat was what? Or just wish he was? Were? But he was. Messed up, but definitely being. Stupid Geoff. Wat was going to have to go over there and take him to task for his inability to finish sentences. That had never seemed like a problem for him before.

It wasn't an excuse, Wat told himself as he rode over to Geoff's house the day after he was due back. It was a legitimate concern. He jumped off the bike whilst it was still moving, leaning it up against the white-stuccoed wall before the wheels had barely stopped spinning. He tried the garage door and couldn't help the disappointment that it was locked pooling low in his belly. It was stupid to think that Geoff would be waiting for him as usual what with him having no clue Wat was coming over, but apparently that hadn't stopped him hoping. 

Blod, the cheerful Welsh housekeeper, let him in. "Coming to lead him astray again, are you?" she asked. 

Wat thought about pointing out exactly who had done the astraying in this particular situation, but Blod made the best drop scones he'd ever tasted and, besides, she was his only adult ally in the house. Geoff's mum hated him, for sure, and Fisher, the secretary, obviously thought that Wat's presence was an abomination unto something or other. Geoff's dad was a ghost, far as Wat was concerned. So he nodded.

"You know me. Is he upstairs?" 

"In the garden. But I don't know if he'd welcome the company, isn't it?"

"Course he will. Been without a decent laugh for a month, hasn't he? I'll sort him, don't you worry."

Blod shrugged. "Don't say I didn't warn you," she said, stepping back and holding the door open. "Best you go through the kitchen. Just mopped the conservatory, I have. Don't want no mucky shoes on my clean floor." 

Wat did as he was told, his hand slipping on the door handle. He told himself it was the heat of the day, but the fizzing in his stomach let him know he was a terrible liar. He had it planned what he was going to say, how he'd be all casual and cool and hey-how've-you-been and what's-with-the-postcards but every thought in his head flew away the second he rounded the corner. There were two deck chairs in the middle of the lawn. On one sprawled Geoff, barefoot and lightly tanned, hair bleached almost white, explaining something with expansive arm movements. In the other was a girl, straight brown hair parted in the middle hiding most of her face from Wat's view. She wore a tiny sundress dotted with yellow flowers and her long legs stretched out, feet resting on Geoff's knees. 

Who the fuck was she? And could she go away so Wat could get on with working out what was supposed to happen next? Geoff stopped talking then, turned and spotted Wat hovering by the corner of the house. There was no disguising the joy on his face. Even Wat got that one.

"Wat! How wonderful! Come over here and tell me everything."

For the briefest moment, Wat couldn't persuade himself to move. If he stayed where he was, nothing would have to change. Nothing would get said that couldn't be unsaid. The scary monsters would be kicked back under the bed and the world would keep on doing its own thing. But then he put one foot forward and then he was crossing the grass, trying to work out what he was supposed to do next. Shake hands? Stand around? 

Geoff took the dilemma away from him by taking the girl's ankles and moving her feet to the arm of the chair. He stood up and opened his arms.

"Not another fucking hug," muttered Wat, grudgingly admitting to himself that it was what he'd been hoping for all along.

Geoff wasn't one for namby pamby back pats. He was a full on hugger and Wat found himself pressed tight to Geoff's chest, chin tucked into his neck. Wat breathed in and his nostrils were filled with the scent of warm, sun-baked skin. It smelled incredible and he was filled with the urge to do it again, to sniff the length and breadth of Geoff's body and…god. He pushed himself away before anything could get too embarrassing. He needn't have worried, because the next thing Geoff said was,

"Wat, I'd like you to meet Philippa. My girlfriend."

"Your what?" asked Wat as Philippa smiled up at him and held out her hand. He took it mindlessly. "Your girlfriend. Philippa. Philippa, your girlfriend." The fizzing in his stomach settled into a cold lump. Well, that was that, then. "I hope you don't mind," he said to her, "but you've got shit taste."

"Hey. You're supposed to be my best friend." Geoffrey flopped back into his chair. 

"Your mum pays me to hang out with you. Didn't I say?"

"Really? It's his father who slips me a bribe." Philippa's freckled nose wrinkled when she laughed. Wat could see that she was pretty, if you liked that sort of thing. He sat down on the grass, ripping at the blades.

"So how did you two meet then?" 

"We've known each other forever, haven't we, Pips? I told you the de Roets would be there, I think? Philippa is the youngest daughter of the house and we've been friends ever since she showed me how to explode sandcastles with firecrackers."

Wat clenched his jaw. This was history, then. Childhood sweethearts and all that. No point even trying to compete, was there? One drunken kiss didn't mean anything against the force of all those shared memories. "I'm missing a postcard, aren't I?" he said. "I see your hand didn't fall off. You get bored or something?"

"I couldn't find a stamp for the last one. I brought it back with me, though. Shall I fetch it for you now?" Was there something odd about Geoff's expression or was Wat's messed up mind reading ghosts that weren't there?

"Later." Not with her here.

They spent a lazy afternoon together, the three of them. Wat had to admit that Philippa was good company and told plenty of tales that he'd never have pried out of Geoff, but it felt like he was a swan, all calm on the surface and paddling like fuck underneath to keep it all going. He excused himself as soon as he decently could and pedalled home as if hell was at his heels, not letting himself think until he reached the sanctuary of his bedroom.

The slam of his door wafted one of the postcards down from the shelf. He grabbed it and the other two, making to tear them in half, but he couldn't bring himself to do it, instead shoving them under his mattress.

This was okay, he told himself. It was fine. He'd only wanted to see what was what, and what was her. He still had his mate and his dignity and maybe Philippa knew a nice girl he'd like and everything would be absolutely and totally normal. Just like it was supposed to be.

Right?

***


	5. Chapter 5

Wat wasn't exactly avoiding Geoff (and his new extension), it was just he'd picked up some extra shifts at the pub and, besides, Roland and Kate had finished their exams and there was significant hanging out on the kiddie swings doing fuck all to be getting on with. Last chance before Roland started up his apprenticeship and everything got one more step closer to grown up. Besides, Wat had work to do upending the old absence makes the heart grow fonder cliché. He was getting there, he could almost swear to it. Still, it was a mixture of surprise and shame that swamped him when Geoff strolled into the pub some two weeks after the whole Philippa issue had arisen. 

"All right?" Geoff leaned on the bar, grinning over at Wat who froze in the middle of his glass drying.

"You can't be in here," Wat whispered, loud enough to be heard over the background buzz. "You're not legal."

"Neither are you," returned Geoff, signalling the attention of Wat's Auntie June. "A pint of best, please."

"It's different." Wat scowled at Geoff then turned to his aunt. "Don't go serving him. He's not eighteen."

"I am."

"You're not."

"I am."

"This your friend, is it, Wat? Are you sure?" Auntie June looked Geoff up and down with a hint of incredulity on her face. Wat couldn't exactly fault her; Geoff was wearing a skin-tight silver tank top with a pink feather boa wrapped around his neck. His eyes seemed brighter than usual and it took Wat a moment to work out that he'd rimmed them with black eyeliner. Wat told himself very firmly that he did not find it in the least attractive.

"Yep. Sure. He's not as weird as he looks."

"Debatable." Geoff turned his smile on Wat's aunt. "But I am eighteen. It's my birthday today. So about that pint?"

"Birthday, eh? Don't suppose you've got any proof about your person have you, love? Can't be too careful."

"Of course." Geoff squirmed, presumably trying to get his hand into pockets that were practically ceremonial. He slapped something down on the bar shaking his head, and resumed his search. "Aha!" he said, flipping open the small black book as if it were a police ID. 

"Lovely piccie." Auntie June nodded at him and took a glass off the shelf, drawing a pint. "Put it away before someone nicks it for their bedroom wall. And happy birthday. First one's on the house being as how you're Wat's pal. Enjoy it."

"Thank you, that's terribly kind."

"I'm a regular Samaritan." She placed the brimming pint glass in front of him and turned away, addressing the next customer with a hearty, "And what can I do you for?"

"Happy birthday, then," said Wat, filled with a vague sense of guilt. "I didn't get you anything."

"Doesn't matter. Here." Geoff picked up the other item he'd pulled out and handed it across to Wat. "I brought you something instead."

Wat threw the tea towel over his shoulder and took what he was offered. It was the fourth postcard, bent and still warm from Geoff's pocket. The picture was of a castle straight out of a fairy tale with turrets and a moat and all very grand. He flipped it over. Geoff had written. "I love it here. Maybe real castles are better than castles in the air after all. Quiet without the knights in their shining armour, though." Nothing had been underlined. Or, no. There was a small line under the 'h' of 'here' that stopped almost as soon as it started. Strange how something so small could feel like a punch to the gut. What had stopped Geoff wishing Wat was there? Distance? Philippa? He stuffed the postcard in his own pocket.

"Personal delivery service. Thanks. Look, I've got to…" He waved his hand in the general vicinity of the snug. "Back in a bit."

Geoff waved a hand in the air. "Of course. Job to do etcetera, etcetera. I understand. Fly, my pretty one, fly!" 

Wat refused to respond, heading out into the crowded room, circling the words 'just a friend just a friend just a friend' round and round in his head until it drowned out everything but the Bay City Rollers crap some wankstain had put on the jukebox.

Some hours later, Wat's Uncle David tapped him on the shoulder. "Your friend's pissed as a fart. I give him half a pint before it's all coming back up. Take him home."

Wat looked over towards the bar where Geoff, half on, half off a bar stool, had hold of Curly Steve's arm and was loudly trying to convince him of the superiority of rugby union over league. Steve was from Wigan so that was never going to fly and, judging by the matching redness of Curly Steve's nose and cheeks, he was only a couple of steps away from explaining his opinion in great detail with his fists. 

"Shift's not over."

"You'll get the full wage, you little scrounger. Get him out of here, will you?"

"Whatever you say, boss man." Wat piled his two stacks of glasses into Uncle David's arms, untied his apron and stuffed it in the top of them. "Now hustle." 

"You're fired. Again." 

"Yeah, yeah. See you tomorrow." Wat twisted through the punters until he was close enough to step between Geoff and Curly Steve. He took the almost empty glass out of an unresisting Geoff's hand and leaned over the bar to put it out of sight. 

"Come on. It's time we were off."

Geoff's eyes were big and dark as he looked up at Wat, the eyeliner smudged with sweat. "But I was just explaining-"

"No, you weren't. You were just leaving. Come on, soldier." Wat turned, slipping an arm under Geoff's and levering him upright. 

"I need to say my farewells," protested Geoff, making himself unreasonably heavy.

"You don't." Wat tugged and this time Geoff staggered forward. Somehow they made it out of the door without incident. The air was barely less humid outside than it was inside, the night refusing to take the chance offered by the sun to cool it down a little. 

"Are you taking me home?"

"You think you're fit to ride a bike, mate? 'Cos I don't."

Geoff shook his head with some violence, then immediately looked like he regretted the choice. "There are several of some things," he admitted. "And the road is swimming. I don't know why. Roads aren't supposed to be equipped for that type of occurrence. Perambulation, yes. Aquatics, no."

"Blimey, does nothing mess with that mouth of yours?" Wat regarded Geoff with some irritation. "It's not right, using that many words when you're fifteen and a half sheets to the wind."

"I'm sorry."

"You're not."

"No. I'm not."

Wat considered punching Geoff's grinning face, but it would probably wind up in blood or puke or both all over him and wouldn't even be that satisfying in the long run. Instead he told Geoff to stay where he was, jogged down the alley into the backyard of the pub and wheeled out his bike.

"You're going to have to stand," he said, motioning to the stunt bars. "Can you do that without falling off, or what?"

Geoff pulled a face. "I can try?"

"Good enough." Wat swung his leg over the crossbar and steadied the bike. "Come on then, and for fuck's sake hold on."

Geoff did more than that, though. He slumped forward, his weight plastered across Wat's back, arms crisscrossed over his chest. Wat gritted his teeth and rode as carefully as he could without it being quicker for them to walk, avoiding any and all potholes as a potential source for the inevitable throwing up. It could only be a matter of time.

He stopped before the drive to Geoff's house. If anyone saw him, they'd pin the blame firmly in his quarter and he was in no mood to deal with that bollocks tonight. 

"Here we go." He slid off the saddle, bracing the bike with all the force at his disposal to make sure the dead weight that was supposed to be a human being didn't end up in a heap on the floor. "Off you get."

Geoff's arms retreated one by one as he stepped down off the bars. "You are a gentleman and a scholar," he said, coming round the side of the bike. 

"Wrong on both accounts."

"If you say so, but thank you anyway."

"Yeah, well, don't make a habit of it, birthday boy. I'm-" But what Wat was about to say was never spoken as Geoff took Wat's face in two unsteady hands and kissed him. Wat registered the warmth first and then the slick wetness of tongue and his instinct was to open up, to let Geoff in. And then sense caught up and he thought, "drunk" and "Philippa" and "fuckshitillegal" and he shoved Geoff off. Geoff staggered backwards a little and then straightened up, eyes glittering in the street lamp glow. He wiped his palm over his mouth.

"You've got a girl for that. If your beer goggles are that good to turn me into a bird I'm borrowing them some time."

"I know. I know. She's in Scotland with her family. I miss her. I'm just…I'm a little drunk."

"Yeah? I'm sober as a fucking judge, me. And I know that snogging boys in public ain't gonna end well for anyone, so don't. I'm your mate, not your substitute girlfriend, even if it is your birthday." Wat let the self-righteous indignation fill him up. It was better than the alternative. "Go inside. Drink water. Go to bed. Wank yourself silly if you need to. Just leave me out of it."

"I-"

"Night, Geoff."

Geoff sighed. "Night, Wat."

The door knocked whilst Wat was in the middle of his cornflakes. He grumbled his way to the door; they'd be all soggy by the time he got back to them if he wasn't careful.

"Hey," said Geoff.

Wat's heart thumped a painful beat. "What?"

"I came to pick up my bike." Geoff looked down. "And apologise. For the…you know."

Wat wanted to say, "Yeah, you should. You should apologise because you can't go getting a girlfriend one second and kissing me the next. It's not right. It's not fair. Not to either of us." Instead he said, "Whatever, man. You were so tanked I'm surprised you got any memory. I know you didn't mean nothing. It's cool. We're cool."

Geoff tilted his head in that way that never failed to make Wat itch uncomfortably. "Good," he said finally. "That's…good. I've got a thing with my mother, but I'll see you soon?"

"Sure," said Wat. "No problem. Soon." He shut the door and went back to his cornflakes, spooning in a mouthful and spitting it straight out. Soggy. He'd known that would happen and now look. The rest of the bowl went down the plughole and he jabbed viciously at the flakes that refused to go down the drain with the end of his spoon, watching the water swirl the fragments away.

***

Time passed soon enough and Wat found himself staring down the fag end of August with nothing much to show for it but slightly pinker skin and a poorly applied layer of self-delusion. So when Mr Thatcher asked if the four of them would like to join him and William for a weekend camping before school started, he agreed instantly. He didn't change his mind either, not even when Roland was stuck at work and Kate said she wanted to get a jump on the materials she would be studying in college. She said her parents had agreed to let her study for A-levels only after the head of the PRU had stood up for her and she was going to get top marks and show them that they should have listened to her all along, even if she didn't have a beard and a horrible comb-over. 

No, it was all right, wasn't it? Just two mates sharing a tent. They'd probably be knackered after a day in the fresh air anyway. Problem solved. Not that there'd ever been one or anything.

And it was good. It was great. There was the part where Mr Thatcher drove them in a borrowed car and Wat kept forgetting that he wasn't blind anymore and would grab the door handle, fearing for his life whenever anything looked like it could be heading for a close shave, but they all got there in one piece. They left the car in a layby and struck out through green, shady forest, carrying what seemed to Wat like enough equipment to see them through an apocalypse, let alone a weekend.

"Can you hear it, lads?" asked Mr Thatcher.

"Hear what?"

"Yes, Dad."

"Hear _what_?"

"Shhh. Listen."

Wat listened. He could hear the dull roar of cars heading up the New Epping Road, some unseen bird that had taken an affront at their walking through its home and the slap of William's sandals with every step, but he was pretty sure none of those were what he was supposed to be noticing. He closed his eyes and the sounds gained another layer—the delicate, shimmering sound of flowing water. He opened his eyes.

"A brook?"

Mr Thatcher pointed his fishing rod at Wat, swinging slightly too close for comfort. (Not blind any more, Wat reminded himself, ducking out of the way.) "Exactly. All we need to do is follow it and it'll lead us where we want to go. Come on!"

They found the brook, narrow enough that Wat could straddle it with ease, and followed its gentle progress downstream. Soon enough, the trees thinned, giving way to a shallow clearing, and the brook ran its last few feet under open skies. It gave into a small lake, green and still, rushes clustering in groups around its perimeter, whispering like gossipy women in the slight breeze.

"'S all right, innit?" Wat said. "Get some nice carp, probably."

Geoff threw his bags dramatically to the floor and clutched his head. "Where is the poetry?" he declaimed. "Wat, you have no soul. All Nature's bounty lies before you and all you can think of is _nice carp_? I may need to disown you."

"Not before we've set up camp," said Mr Thatcher, putting down his own gear with much greater care. "Geoff, William, do the pair of you go and find us some firewood. Wat and me'll take care of the tents. Right, lad?"

"Right." Wat flicked the Vs at Geoff. "As for you, you tell me again how I've got no soul when you're eating the delicious fish I've caught."

"So, Wat," began Mr Thatcher once they'd sorted the rods for the first tent, "What's your plan?"

"Er, well, get the frame up, double peg it to the…"

"Not that. Your life plan. What are you going to do?"

"I don't follow."

"There's Roland all fixed in his dressmaking and Kate off to college. Young Geoffrey's headed for Cambridge and fame and fortune then, I'll be bound, and even William has big ideas. If it's not professional cricket, then it's an eye doctor. But you…" Mr Thatcher straightened and fixed Wat with an open gaze. "You're a clever lad, Wat Fowlehurst, even if you pretend otherwise, and I can't see you as a potman the rest of your life. So, then. What's your plan?"

Wat's hands, steadily feeding rods into their sleeves, stilled. First off, how was it any business of Will's dad what he did with his life? And second…well, second he realised he hadn't given it much thought. Was he supposed to have? Was this another thing he was screwing up on? Working out what and who he wanted to do? 

"I dunno," he said. "It'll probably just work itself out." He continued to feed the rod through.

"There's nothing more you want, then?"

Wat shoved the rod so hard it almost tore the sleeve. "Shit! I mean, crap! Sorry." He tugged it back and tried again. "I dunno. Maybe. Maybe I want to run my own pub." The second it was out of his mouth he knew it was true. His chest puffed. Look at that! That was ambition, that was. He might not want to rule the world, but it would be enough ruling his own small part of it. "Maybe I'll even put food on," he added. "Proper, like, not just crisps and pork scratchings."

"There, you see? That's a plan. But you might want to learn to keep your nails clean first."

Wat looked down at his black-rimmed fingernails. Yeah, okay, that was a good point. Mr Thatcher grinned at him.

"I brought you a spare hat," he said.

By the time Geoff and Will came back with armfuls of sticks, both tents were up and Wat and Mr Thatcher were fishing off the small jetty, trousers rolled up and feet dangling in the water. 

"Well, that's not a state of affairs that can be allowed to continue," Wat heard Geoff say behind him and then the rod was snatched from his hand and a shove between his shoulder blades launched him head first into the water. At only a few inches deep, his knees hit the bottom before he could do a total face dive and he swivelled, grabbing Geoff's ankle and hauling him in after him, pushing himself off and half paddling, half swimming further into the lake. William, still on the jetty, whooped loudly, and took a running jump off it, practically landing on Geoff's back.

"The fish! Boys, the fish!" called Mr Thatcher, but they paid him no attention, Wat forming a silent pact with William to duck Geoff and to duck him _good_.

Later, when the fish had been caught, cooked and eaten, the clothes on the makeshift washing line dried to a mild crisp and ghost stories told with varying success around the fire, Wat crawled into his sleeping bag and wriggled himself into a more or less comfortable position.

"Are you quite finished?"

"No." He was, but he mutinously wriggled a few more times because why not?

Geoff laughed. "You are such a child."

"Goo goo."

Wat stopped wriggling and they lay in silence for a few minutes. It was the first time Wat had been alone with Geoff all day and now they were spending the night together. Another first. He listened to Geoff breathe and felt nothing but relaxed. His belly was full with food he'd caught himself, he was with one of his best mates, the moonlight filtered through the canvas and eased the dark. Yeah, it was pretty good. Everything was going to be okay.

"Wat?"

"Mmm."

"Are you awake?"

Wat was aware Geoff wouldn't see the eye roll, but did it anyway. "Yep."

"How's your collarbone these days?"

"You what?"

"From the crash. Do you notice it now?"

"It's fine. Any other body parts you want to enquire about?"

Geoff said nothing, but the silence had that heavy waiting quality to it and Wat instinctively covered his chest with his hand. 

"I'm sorry it got broken, you know. I wish you hadn't suffered at all, but I can't be anything but glad that I got you out of the whole incident."

Wat's heart thudded hard against his hand and he swallowed, trying to wet a throat that was suddenly dry.

Geoff continued. "If I'm entirely truthful, I haven't had a friend like you since Ad…since forever, really. No, not a friend. I was alone and now there's you and I have the brother I stopped nagging my mother for when I realised small children were not her métier. I'm glad you're my brother, Wat. I truly am."

Wat said nothing. One fist twisted in his t-shirt and one clenched by his side. He fought a silent battle against his breathing and the unspoken cry of, "Brother?" that squatted dark and ugly behind his teeth. 

"Wat, are you…? Oh, my sainted aunt, Wat, is it John? I'm so sorry, I shouldn't…" 

There was a rustle next to him and Geoff's hand found Wat's shoulder, squeezing tight.

"No," Wat managed to say, too aware of the heat of Geoff's palm. "Don't worry about it. It's cool." 

It wasn't. Not even the smallest bit. Wat dug his fingernails into his palm.

"Are you sure?"

"Yep."

"You would say if-"

"Go to sleep, posh boy."

"But…" Geoff's fingertips tapped lightly against Wat's shoulder and then withdrew. "It doesn't matter what we call it," he said, shifting again so that his voice was muffled. "All the time we've spent together—I wouldn't have missed any of it."

"Yeah, well, I would." There was no malice in Wat's voice, though, and the body next to him didn't move. Funny how Geoff was so clever at hearing through some words and deaf as a post to other ones. Wat couldn't understand it.

Against his better judgement Wat turned onto his side to find Geoff on his, his hand so close it almost grazed Wat's cheek. Geoff's eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted. Wat had never seen him so still before. Even when flung at full length on whatever surface was available, there was some part of him always moving—his eyes would dart about or his fingers would twitch or his legs would jiggle. Wat thought that maybe Geoff was like a shark—stop moving and he would die—but here he was, motionless as a stone, and still entirely alive.

Wat watched as Geoff's face slipped into sleep, his breathing deepening as the muscles slackened. He tried to get his own breathing into sync, but it was too quick, too shallow. Unthinking, he rolled his cheek towards Geoff's palm, pressing a kiss into it and tugged the rucked sleeping bag up over Geoff's shoulder, smoothing it down. He was such a mess, Geoff. Good thing he had Wat to keep an eye out for him. He lifted his hand to Geoff's face, brushing dishevelled hair from his forehead and tucking it behind his ear. Warmth spread across Wat's chest and his hand froze. This wasn't- This couldn't be- Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

It was an undignified scramble to get out of the tent without waking Geoff, but Wat managed it. He sat by the embers of the fire, sleeping bag wrapped round his shoulders and head in his hands. This was stupid. Worse than stupid. And so much worse than Wat could have ever imagined. Maybe it was just something posh folk did, snog their friends when they were drunk. It wasn't as if he had any proof that Geoff wanted anything more than friendship from him sober. Maybe Roland was wrong and this whole thing was an _Upstairs Downstairs_ communication misfire and it was how posh people did stuff, all touchy feely and that. Geoff did have the appropriately high-class bird after all.

This was Wat's problem, plain and simple. Easiest thing would be to cut himself off a bit. Go cold turkey, like. He gave that thought houseroom for a whole ten seconds and then decided against it. Geoff would be back at school anyway. He'd have to be working hard, trying to get into his precious university, so they'd probably only see each other at weekends when Wat didn't have to work. Whatever else his body had decided to do with the facts, Geoff was Wat's mate, no matter he still couldn't really explain how that had happened, and he wasn't going to lose that. Not over some stupid, pointless crush that neither of them had asked for and neither of them deserved. 

He sat by the dying fire watching the moon travel across the sky, dipping low behind the trees, the darkness taking back what belonged to it. He was his mother's son, wasn't he? If something needed repressing then he'd bloody well repress it. He'd always meant to sleep out under the stars. Everything was going according to plan.

***

Wat set himself rules: no lounging on beds together, no touching unless for saving lives or swapping food, no hanging out two consecutive days without other company, keep your hands out of your pants if you can't keep your fantasies church approved, and, most important of all, no getting drunk together. Some days it was easier to stick to the rules than others, but as the winter drew in it became almost routine. So what if sometimes he woke up with his fists clenched so tight he spent the rest of the day with crescent moons carved into his palms? So what if other times he woke to a sticky mess in his pants for the first time since he ran full pelt into puberty? 

December had been unusually mild so far and the chill blast of air every time the pub door opened was a constant surprise to anyone standing close enough to catch it. This time the doors were flung back so hard hands went out to protect rattling pints and Wat, even in his position behind the bar, shivered in the sudden cold. He looked over to scold whoever had caused the commotion only to see a group of loudly excited lads tumbling into the pub, Geoff in their midst.

Geoff caught Wat's eyes, lifted his arms in the air, and declared at the top of his voice, "We've only gone and done it, haven't we? Gleaming spires, here we come!"

The glass Wat was attempting to put away slipped from his grasp and shattered on the floor.

"Shit. Sorry. Shit." Wat cast an apologetic glance at his aunt. "Don't come over this way. I'll sort it."

"Yes. Yes, my pet, you will. Now, boys, what'll it be?"

By the time Wat was sure he'd got the last of the shards, wrapping it up in old newspaper and taping it up for good measure, Geoff and his mates were settled at a corner table, somehow managing to fit all of them on seats meant for half as many. Wat supposed he should go over, but the sheer quantity of floppy hair on display was intimidating. He smoothed down his apron, tucked a tray under his arm, and lifted up the bar flap.

"'gratulations, mate," he said, aware that he'd added ten percent extra gruff to his usual quota. At least, that's what he blamed for the quizzical smile on Geoff's face. "Knew you'd do it, though. Proper smartarse, you."

"Thank you so much for those heartfelt words, Wat. I suppose you're glad to know you'll be getting me out of your hair soon enough."

How Wat kept himself from staggering back under the blow, he would never know. But he found himself saying, "Too bloody right," and then making some vague gesture indicating that really, he ought to go and get on with his work. He heard one of the other lads say, "How are you friends with him again?" but didn't stick around to hear Geoff's reply.

Geoff had got into Cambridge and that was bloody brilliant, it was, and Wat wanted it for him like he wanted it for himself. Only it had somehow slipped his mind that Geoff going to uni would equal Geoff…not being here. He made his rounds mindlessly, nodding along to whatever folk were saying, sweeping glasses off tables and filling his tray.

"Hey! I wasn't finished with that!" Someone snatched her wine glass back from him causing the whole tray to wobble. Wat barely avoided snarling at the blameless woman and took his load back to the bar, crashing the tray down hard enough to set the glasses to making their own tune.

"Watch it! Any more breakages tonight and I'm docking your wages."

"Fine." Wat made an effort not to slam down the bar flap and got back to the washing up, concentrating hard on the glasses to think past the noise in his head.

Geoff was leaving and it didn't matter how many rules Wat set up, they'd only get torn down again because it wasn't going away, this thing. He'd tried so hard and it wasn't going anywhere, and come September Geoff would be gone and Wat would be left with the weight of it, all on his own. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. Heat roiled inside him and he let it fill him up, tightening his jaw and breath coming harsh through his nostrils. He looked over to where Geoff was laughing with his mates, hand on some dark lad's shoulder and something snapped. 

He tried for a subtle saunter back over to Geoff's table, keeping his hands in his apron pockets so no one could see the whiteness of his knuckles. "Geoff. A word?"

"Not now." Geoff didn't even look round. The bastard.

"Yes. Now."

And whatever it was Geoff saw when he looked at Wat's face, it was enough to get him on his feet and scrambling through too many legs. 

Wat turned away. "Follow me." He led Geoff through a door at the back of the bar and up the stairs into the flat above the pub. 

"Where are we…"

"Shut up." He opened another door into a small bedroom. No one ever slept in here, and his aunt and uncle used it for extra storage, the walls lined with cardboard boxes. He scrabbled for the light switch. "Through there."

"Wat-"

"Through. There."

Geoff stepped into the room and Wat crowded in after him, shutting the door and leaning back on it, gripping the handle behind him.

"Do you want to tell me what this is all about?"

Not really, thought Wat, and flexed his hands, sweaty palms slipping on the metal handle. "I'm proud of you." It was a start, wasn't it?

Geoff softened. "Thank y-"

"No, don't. I have to- Just shut it. I am proud, I swear, but I don't want you to go."

"You don't?"

Wat stared at the floor. Interesting bit of carpet, that. "No."

"Why?"

And Wat didn't know what it was, but there was something about the way Geoff spoke that one simple word that riled him like nothing ever had before and he slammed his palms back into the door and half-whispered, half-yelled, "Why did you make me feel like this?! I never asked you to! I can't get you out of my head and I'm _losing_ it, Geoff. I am. I don't want it. Why did you do this to me?"

Geoff started to take a step forward, but Wat growled him into place. "Be fair. I didn't make you do anything. Since when do I have any control over you? And life hasn't been a picnic for me either, Wat Fowlehurst. God knows I tried hard enough not to feel this way given how you reacted when I kissed you."

"Geoff." Wat's heart was hammering and he couldn't get his head round what he was hearing. "You-"

"Yes."

"God." Wat pushed away from the sanctuary of the door. The few steps to Geoff seemed like miles and he stumbled across them as if he'd forgotten what legs were for.

"I can't-" He reached out a hand, patting at Geoff's chest, as if it were afraid to land. "God, I-"

Geoff covered Wat's hand, pressing it down hard over his heart. It raced fit to beat Wat's own. Wat swallowed and finally met Geoff's eyes. The black of his pupils had almost eclipsed the blue. There was no escaping it now. No way back but forward. So Wat, unable to help himself, closed his eyes, leaned in and kissed Geoff as if nothing else had ever mattered in all the world.

He kissed Geoff and couldn't remember why it had taken him this long to do it. He kissed Geoff and his fingers clutched wherever they could reach, tugging him in closer. He kissed Geoff and Wat's blood fizzed with it, and it was as if something inside him bloomed, something new and beautiful and _theirs_.

"I love you," he said. The words he'd thought would have to be forever locked away – out of sight if never out of mind – slipped out soft and easy, sweetening the heated air between them. How odd that it was so simple.

It was so simple and yet Geoff's stunned expression told him that it was a revelation. He took Wat's face in both hands and drew him in close, muttering something against Wat's lips. Wat let himself be distracted by kissing for a while and then gently pushed Geoff away.

"What?"

"I said, 'thank you'. I know what it takes to be brave and look at you, doing it sober. Unlike me." Geoff's hand slid around the back of Wat's neck. "Thank you. And since you were so brave, I should take the plunge myself, shouldn't I? So here it is, Wat, the Socialists' child: I've been preposterously in love with you for a long time. In all honesty, practically since the day we met."

Wat shook his head. "But Philippa." He paused. "Shit. Philippa. Geoff, we can't-"

"We split up. Months ago, actually. It was a summer fling. A distraction for the pair of us from, shall we say unsatisfactory situations? We both knew it wasn't going anywhere." Geoff had the good grace to look ashamed so Wat resisted the temptation to punch him in the arm.

"I hate you."

"Well, that was quick. I'll be off then." Geoff made as if to get away and Wat tugged him back, kissing him hard as if there were any doubts needing dispelling.

"Anything else?" he asked, his lips finding their way down Geoff's neck, thumbs tucking into the belt loops of Geoff's trousers. "While we're being all honest, like."

Geoff tipped his head back, fingers finding their way into Wat's hair, unable to stay still for a second. "There is the matter of the postcards, I suppose."

Wat straightened up, Geoff's hands falling away. "I knew it. You were doing it on purpose. Why'd you stop?"

"Ah, well." Geoff trailed one finger down Wat's chest, coming to rest in the waistband of his apron. "I, er, as you say, bottled it. With each one I sent the stakes got higher and I didn't have the wherewithal to cover my losses were the odds not to work out in my favour."

"In English."

"I couldn't risk losing you."

"That I get." Wat grinned. "I am just that good."

"You joke, but you are. To me, you are."

Wat kissed him again. And then again and again and again until he was breathless and dizzy with it and his dick throbbed with insistent life. Everything in him made him want to push forward, to find more points of connection, but a loud roar from downstairs brought him back to his senses and he tore himself away, stepping back and reaching again for the safety of the door handle, though for entirely better reasons now. 

"I've got to-" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "They'll kill me if I don't."

Geoff nodded, wiping his mouth with the palm of his hand. The familiar gesture didn't make Wat angry this time, it made him want. He licked his lips and was suddenly very, very grateful for his apron.

"Look, you got your mates and this is your night so it's okay. I'm not working tomorrow. I'll come by yours, yeah?"

"Yes. Yes, definitely. Yes."

Wat grinned. "So I'll take that as a yes, then."

He went down the stairs whistling and nothing could wipe the smile off his face for the rest of the shift.

"That's not right," said Auntie June, regarding him with furrowed eyebrows. "All that smiling on you. You coming down with something, are you?"

"Maybe I am," Wat said. "Maybe I already have."

***


	6. Chapter 6

Shy wasn't anything Wat was used to feeling, if truth be told. He was more the chin-up, yeah-you'd-better-get-used-to-me kind of guy. Yet here he was standing on Geoff's doorstep fidgeting from foot to foot unable to raise his hand to knock because it was busy keeping in the worms wriggling in his belly. What if Geoff had changed his mind? What if Wat had dreamed the whole thing? What if Wat did something really stupid and broke everything before it had even had a chance to get started?

"Oh, crap." He lifted a hand only to find the door swinging open without his help.

"Boots," said Blod, pointing at his with a finger practically vibrating with disapproval. "Off now."

Wat's heart sank at the sight of her. So much for privacy. He bent down and began the laborious process of removing his Docs. "Slave driver."

"He's upstairs, the lamb. You go on up, now. I've the silver to finish and there's Davey needs to be at the doctor's for three with his rash." She sucked air in through her teeth. "Unfortunately placed, that is. Anyway, stop holding me up and letting the warm out."

"Sorry, Blod." Wat stepped over the threshold, putting his boots carefully on the piece of newspaper Blod always left out for the purpose. "Don't go nicking any of that polished silver now."

"I'll polish your behind." Blod swatted at Wat's backside as he scooted past, running up the stairs.

Geoff's door was ajar, but Wat hesitated outside, fingertips pressed to the wood. He could feel his heartbeat in them and the drumming of it was as loud as a knock to him. Perhaps to Geoff, too, because he called, "Get in here, you great lummox!" and Wat couldn't wait any longer.

"So, hi," he said, taking his time closing the door before turning round. Geoff was lying on his bed, propped up against the headboard. He was wearing bright blue pyjamas with a ridiculously thick pair of hand knitted socks, a matching hat and a tartan blanket wrapped around his shoulders. A notebook and pen lay in his lap. 

"What do you look like? Shouldn't you be smoking a pipe, grampa?" It was stupid, how this could make Wat's heart beat faster, but there it was. It was never Geoff's normalness he'd wanted.

"Out of tobacco." 

Geoff's smile might as well have been landing lights on a runway, brilliant and irresistible, and Wat followed it to the bed. He dropped his coat on the floor and then threw himself down with a nonchalance that was entirely faked, the pen bouncing in Geoff's lap.

"All right?"

"Yeah, you?"

"Yeah."

Silence fell. This should be easier, shouldn't it? They'd done the hard stuff already and they'd had months of practice at being friends. But Wat hadn't felt so awkward since that time Lisa Taylor's parents invited him to dinner to welcome him to the family. It was one hug. One! He sneaked a look at Geoff only to find him doing exactly the same thing. Wat laughed, the tension draining away. He wriggled up the bed until they were shoulder to shoulder.

"We don't have to-" Geoff started, but Wat didn't let him finish, lifting his hand to Geoff's cheek, tugging his head round and kissing him. 

"Or we could, you know," said Geoff when they finally broke apart, "Do that."

"Gets my vote." 

"Come here, then." Geoff reached for Wat's arm and Wat let himself be hauled over until he straddled Geoff's lap. 

Geoff sat up, leaning in for another kiss and Wat looped his arms round his neck, holding them both upright, fingers tangling in Geoff's hair. Geoff pushed his hands under Wat's jumper and Wat shivered as the cool fingers stroked his back. Acting on blind instinct, Wat pressed harder against Geoff, biting his lip, tightening his hold. The notebook on Geoff's lap moved of its own accord and Wat reached down to knock it out of the way, the side of his hand grazing something hard that was most definitely not hip bone. Oh. Well, yeah. That made sense, didn't it? With the kissing and the touching and that. The notebook clattered to the floor and Wat was unbearably aware of his own arousal and the ease with which he could just press himself hard against Geoff and make this all go away. 

Wat had once seen a gaggle of geese take flight, all mad scrambling and wings beating hard against the air. It seemed that today they'd chosen his stomach for a launch pad. He broke the kiss and pressed his head into Geoff's neck, panting hard. He told himself to stop even as he slid his hand in between buttons of Geoff's pyjama top and let his fingers soak up the warmth of his skin. It was too much to have, too much to want, too soon, but, oh, how he wanted it.

He was screwing up his courage to move his hand lower when there was a sharp knock on the door and he flung himself off Geoff and halfway across the room, heart hammering in his chest. Geoff hastily pulled the blanket from around his shoulders onto his lap and called a breathless, "Come in."

Blod came in bearing a tray with two steaming mugs and a plate of buttered scones. "I brought you boys a snack," she said. "It's not like you won't be hungry, is it?" 

Neither boy made a move to help her with the tray and she tutted, walking round the bed to leave it on the desk. "I suppose manners are too much to expect now you've left school behind. Shame on you." 

"I do apologise," Geoff said, genuinely contrite. "I'm afraid I'm still a little the worse for wear from last night. Thank you for thinking of us and I'll bring the tray down and wash up myself."

"Hmm." Blod smoothed her apron. "It's a start."

"She could take on my mum for making you feel like shit," said Wat as they listened to her retreating footsteps. "But she beats her hands down for baking. Here, have a scone."

Ignoring the vague tremble in his hands, he passed over the plate and then a mug of hot chocolate before sitting on the desk chair and propping his legs up on the bed. He stuffed half a scone in his mouth and chewed, groaning with pleasure. She really was a top cook, that Blod. And butter all the way. No stingy marge here. Just the way Wat liked it. Maybe he'd get her to come and cook at his pub when he owned one. They could make a killing, he reckoned.

"What's your plan?" he asked round a mouthful of crumbs, suddenly reminded of Mr Thatcher's questioning.

"My what now?"

"You got months before uni, right? You gotta do something with your time or you'll go bonkers. I know you."

"Yes, you do." Geoff caressed Wat's shin with his foot. "I was planning to travel."

"Travel."

"Mmmm. A few months InterRailing around Europe. See the sights, soak up the culture, that sort of thing."

"Oh." Wat put down the half eaten scone, appetite entirely gone AWOL.

Geoff pushed at his leg. "I'm not going _now_ , you idiot."

"You're not?"

"You think I'm going to swan off and leave you behind just when we've started this? It was one thing to be on my merry way when I thought the space between us might help me, ah, move past the endless pining, but now…"

"Now what?" 

"You know what."

Wat shoved the rest of the scone in his mouth and grinned. Yeah, he knew. "Tell me."

"Come back here and I will."

Wat didn't need telling twice and climbed over Geoff's legs, settling at his side, swallowing down the last mouthful. Geoff slid his arm round Wat's shoulders and turned towards him, pressing their foreheads together. "I am so horribly in love with you I can't see straight."

Wat laughed and said, "Uh, obviously," but reached for Geoff anyway, curling his fingers around Geoff's ear. 

"So, where were we?"

The geese exploded into life again and Wat squeezed his eyes shut, tucking his chin to his chest as if that could hold them in. 

"Hey, are you okay?"

Wat nodded, forcing himself to look back up. "Can we just…It's not that I don't…but I haven't." God, he sounded so pathetic. "Just kissing, okay?" It came out angry and he saw the wound in the fast blink of Geoff's eyes. "Fuck, no, sorry. I didn't mean to…I'm so shit at this. Look." He took a deep breath. "I'm freaking out. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before and I got to feel ready and I'm not. Not yet. I'm sorry."

Geoff's face cleared. He stroked Wat's arm. "Don't be sorry. I understand, I do. Yesterday I was grateful simply to call you friend and today here we are, together. I never believed I'd have so much. I can wait, trust me. I've had plenty of practice. Here." He pulled at the blanket on his lap, shaking it out so that it covered them both and rolled Wat so that his head came to rest against the hollow below Geoff's shoulder. 

Geoff teased at Wat's hair, fingers first ruffling then attempting to smooth it back down. Good luck with that, Wat thought. He wrapped his arm round Geoff's chest and felt himself relax, his racing heart slowing to its regular beat. Wat closed his eyes, happy just to be close. Wait. His eyes flew open again. 

"It's a bit _gay_ , isn't it?"

"Hmm?"

"Cuddling up like this. It's a bit gay."

Geoff's fingers stilled. "In that we are both of the male persuasion, I suppose it is. But you do know that cuddling comes as standard in most relationship options, don't you? There's nothing particularly gay about it."

That wasn't what Wat meant and he knew that Geoff knew it, too. Geoff's fingers resumed their stroking, tracing the outline of Wat's ear and Wat decided that gay or not, he didn't care. No one could see and he bloody well deserved the attention after waiting all this time.

"Geoff," he said after a few minutes, "Do your folks know you like boys and girls?"

"I've never hidden it." Geoff flicked Wat's ear. "But then, I've never gone out of my way to tell them either. We're not a terribly communicative family. I know, I know, lots of words, darling, but very few of them actually _mean_ anything."

"I never liked girls. Not in that way at least. Never really thought about why."

"What about boys?"

Wat tapped out a beat against Geoff's ribs. "Dunno. Not them neither, really."

"Well, doesn't that make me feel special?"

Wat shrugged. "S'pose you are." Of course you are, he wanted to say. Don't be so bloody stupid. Don't you understand what it's been like for me these past months?

"It was the eloquence that first attracted me to the great scholar, Wat Fowlehurst," began Geoff, adding, "Oof!" as Wat biffed him with the side of a fist.

"Kiss you better," said Wat, tipping his head up.

Sometime later, Geoff asked, "What would your parents do if you told them?"

"Told them what?"

"That you like boys. Or me. That you're g-"

"Kill me prob'ly," Wat interrupted. "Prob'ly my mum would cry and my dad would beat seven bells out of me. The cat, she wouldn't care."

Geoff was silent for a moment. What was there to say anyway? Wat hadn't really considered the possibilities before and it was the work of a moment to know that there was no way he would ever tell his parents he'd fallen in love with a bloke. Not even if hell froze over. They loved him, he knew that, but there were limits, weren't there? His mum was already hinting about grandchildren here and there. With John gone, who else was supposed to provide? 

"So no turning up on the doorstep with flowers and asking your father for your hand in marriage, then?"

"Ha, ha."

"I'm sorry," said Geoff after another silence.

"What for? Turning my head? You should be, mate." Wat looked up and shook his head. "Don't be sorry for my folks. They're what I've got and I love them whatever. Not like we're shouting this from the rooftops anyway, right? The law's still the law."

"True, true. Turn your head up this way and kiss me some more then, will you? Screw the law."

So Wat did. A lot. Until the insistent chime of the clock downstairs pointed out to Wat that he was going to be so, so late for work.

***

"She's very nice and that's all I'm saying." 

"Roland's got a girlfriend," sing-songed Kate, rolling onto her back, flicking up a pillow with her feet and catching it. "He wants to kiss her. Like this!" She brought the pillow to her face and made loud smacking noises against it.

"Stop it. Christina's not my girlfriend."

"Yet. Now give me your other hand." 

"She'll never be if he dies of embarrassment. Look at his chubby red cheeks." Wat ducked out of the way of Roland's flailing fist, the other shaking in Geoff's grasp.

"Stay still unless you want your whole hand painted."

"Tell your boyfriend then."

Wat flushed and shoved a foot into Roland's hip.

"Wat, Roland said to tell you."

"Yeah, I got it."

Geoff frowned for a second and then shifted forward, placing Roland's hand on his knee. "Change of topic warranted then, I see. Kate, have you bested that blighter yet? What's his name?"

"Ugh. Roger Fairbairn. He's such a wanker. Can't stand that I'm better than he is." Kate kicked the pillow halfway across her room. "I've got top marks in every test so far and I'm not going to let that change no matter how often he tells me to get back to the kitchen where I apparently belong."

"Obviously he's never tried your rice pudding," Wat said. "Broke my spoon, that did."

"Yeah, but I can make a bomb from ordinary household cleaners so the amount of flying fucks I give about rice pudding is exactly zero."

"Fair point." Wat raised his hands. "Please don't explode me, Kate. I've got things to do."

Kate narrowed her eyes at him. "I'll grant you a stay. For now." She poked out her tongue and turned her attention to Geoff. "How about you? Broken any major stories yet? Or just another photocopier?"

Geoff looked up from his careful painting of Roland's thumbnail. "It was only the one photocopier. And it wasn't broken, merely fatally jammed with the ennui of paper that never produces anything remotely interesting. This week I have mostly been scaling the giddy heights of proofreading the personals. It's a career highlight, I won't lie to you."

"I bet you wish you'd pissed off to Italy now, don't you?"

Geoff ducked his head, a smile edging his lips. "No."

The thing was, Wat had noticed, that the fewer words Geoff used the more truth was in them. He glowed and let his toes press lightly into Geoff's thigh. Geoff had done what he said, given up the idea of travelling round Europe instead finding himself an entry-level job at the local rag. It paid peanuts because a monkey could manage it with minimal training, but in his flippant moments Geoff said it was good practice in how not to run a paper. In his occasional serious ones he admitted to watching the senior news reporters like a hawk to learn from them even if they didn't want to teach. 

"Gonna be a great journo some day, you," said Wat. "You can write about your losing battle with the photocopier in your memoirs."

"I'll devote an entire chapter to it. There." Geoff lifted Roland's hand and admired it. "You're all done, Mr Delves, and may I say that turquoise is particularly fetching on you?"

"You may."

Geoff tapped Wat's ankle. "I do believe it is your turn."

"Nah, you're all right," Wat folded his arms.

"But you look so delightful in purple. Don't think I don't remember."

Wat's stomach lurched as the memory of the last time he'd let Geoff paint his nails came at him like a freight train. But it wasn't the kiss that started the whole thing in motion that caused him to tuck his hands firmly in his armpits.

"Seriously. I'm okay.'

"Alas, there are plenty of professionals who would take issue with that assertion. Come on. Don't be a spoilsport."

"I'm not. I just like my nails the way they are."

"Filthy?" asked Kate.

"Bitten to the quick?" suggested Roland.

"Yeah, funny. Just natural, like."

"Kate, grab his left arm. Roland, sit on his feet. We'll have our wicked way with him and turn him into a veritable rainbow of colour."

Before they'd had a chance to lunge, Wat was on his feet, backed into a corner and breathing heavily, fists raised in a boxer's guard.

"Don't touch me!" he spat.

Three pairs of shocked eyes were turned on him.

"Wat," said Kate in a voice both infinitely patient and perplexed, "it's just a bit of fun. We'll drop it, I promise. If you'll just drop your fists."

Wat did as he was told, but his hands stayed clenched by his side. Geoff stood and took a cautious step towards him, reaching out a hand, but not touching. 

"What is this? What is it really? It wasn't a problem before."

"That's before I was…I'm not wearing nail varnish out there," Wat said, jabbing a finger towards the window. "It's too poofy."

"Oh, Wat," said Kate, impulsively leaping off the bed and straight past his defences to hug him tight around the waist. "Oh, _love_."

Wat let himself be hugged, but his eyes were on Geoff. I'm sorry, he wanted to say. I'm sorry this isn't a walk in the park for me. "It's not you," he said instead, hating the sadness on Geoff's face. "I'm not ashamed of _you_."

"No. You think you're ashamed of yourself and that's worse. Kate, do you mind?"

"Not at all." She released her hold and stepped back.

Geoff took her place, hands heavy on Wat's shoulders. "Tell the truth, Wat. Are you angry with the world or yourself?"

Wat's thoughts churned. Being with Geoff, the two of them, even with Roland and Kate, that was one thing. Space where he could be himself and be happy with who that was. The idea that anyone else might see, that was where it all fell down. Things were against the law for a reason, weren't they? Weren't they?

Geoff shook his head and Wat, too. "So you can be gay in private when you turn twenty-one, but before then what? You pack away your feelings in a trunk in the attic and hope the moths don't get at them? And then you reach the magical number, get the key to the door and the trunk, too, shake out the creases and see how beautiful those long-forgotten feelings are, how they shine when they catch the light. But you can't wear them out in public because something something destruction of moral fibre? Does that seem fair to you? Putting love up on the block with murder? Men can't beat their cattle, but they can beat their wives with impunity. Tell me that the law is always reasonable and I'll give you a thousand reasons why it's not, starting with my cousin's broken nose. Who do you think is wrong, Wat? Them or us?" 

"I don't know," Wat said, fingers uncurling as the fight went out of him. "Truth, Geoff, I don't know." But even as he said it, something shifted in his brain like a gear not quite catching and slipping into freewheel before he was ready. "Maybe my toenails today," he said.

***

"Come on," Geoff said, tugging at Wat's arm, "The sun shines, the birds call to their loves and there's a sweetness in the air that says we've finally shaken winter from our heels. Let's go out into the great world and make it our own." 

"Eh?"

"We can't stay cooped up in here all the time, Wat. Charming though your company is."

"You could just say so." Wat grumbled to his feet. "Where we going then?"

"How about a ride by the river? I can ask Blod to put us up a picnic. We can watch the water and the world go by."

Wat had to concede it was a good plan. Apart from a couple of trips to the flicks he and Geoff had mostly hung out indoors, sometimes with Kate and Roland, sometimes in the hubbub of The Phoenix, mostly alone. Geoff's room had grown on him, words and all, but seeing something else was definitely tempting.

"You're on. Think she's got any of them special biscuits she makes?"

"First one down gets extras."

Wat didn't need telling twice.

"Are you ever going to stop being smug about it?" Geoff knocked his foot into Wat's ankle.

"Nah." Wat kicked back, looking down at Geoff stretched the length of the blanket and then some more for good measure. "It was prob'ly her best yet, I reckon. I would've shared but, well, I didn't want to."

Geoff shaded his eyes with his hand. "Always the charmer."

They'd settled on the grass verge bordering the towpath, avoiding the clumps of daffodils and crocuses that lent bright colour to the day. It seemed that everyone wanted to take advantage of the spring weather. The river was studded with slow-moving houseboats and small craft, occupants calling out cheerful hellos or frantic warnings to each other. Families trundled past on mismatched bikes, joggers bared their legs, still milk pale from being hidden away all winter. The whole world was passing them by.

Every now and then a couple would wander past, hand in hand. Some chatted animatedly, others walked in silence, their constant glances all the conversation they needed. Wat smiled at the first couple and the second, feeling a sense of camaraderie with them—warm sun on their face, love by their side—but by the time several other couples had passed, arms wrapped around waists, stumbling as they kissed and walked at the same time, his stomach squirmed with an entirely different feeling. 

"It's not fair," he muttered, loud enough for only Geoff to hear.

"What isn't?"

"Can't do that, can we?" He jerked his head in the direction of the latest couple. "Outside anyhow."

Geoff sat up and watched the couple giggle out of earshot. "Well, we can. It might not be the wisest course of action, but there's nothing to stop us holding hands right this very second if that's what you'd like." He glanced at Wat with a puzzled frown. "Is that what you'd like? Because-"

"But we're underage and both in charge of a dick. That's not allowed, is it?" Wat spat. "Bastard laws."

"I think we're allowed to be in charge of our own dicks, to be fair to the government. And the handholding thing is fine, too, trust me. Maybe somewhat on the unsafe side and then there's the whole possibility of being disowned by family and friends which, of course, should not be discounted. But no one's going to throw your exceptional arse in jail for a little public affection. Unless PC Plod is having a really terrible day. Hmmm. Perhaps there's something to be said for no handholding after all."

It was Wat's turn for the puzzled frown. "But it's illegal, right? Being gay? I saw the news on the telly when they had that parade thing in London."

"Oh, I see." Geoff shook his head. "It's not quite that simple, nor that draconian, at least, not quite. No, we can be as homosexual as we like—as gay as a double rainbow—we just can't have homosexual sex. Or flirt or attempt to pick anyone up for a quickie in a park toilet. Or in any other way do anything that might be considered as lining up a fellow for some intimate quality time. When you and I attain the grand old age of twenty-one, we can bugger each other willy nilly if we like, but only behind a locked door on private property, sans audience. I wouldn't be able to do you in the Ritz, for example, which is a shame because I'm sure we could be incredibly inventive with the cream teas if we tried."

"Huh. Okay. But if we wanted, you know, to do…dick stuff now?"

"Oh," said Geoff airily, "Totally illegal, darling. You and I can't possibly make up our own minds what our genitalia wish to do. We're far too young. Presumably the bad-tempered Plod would be within his rights to charge through my locked door and throw himself upon the, ah, grenade, as it were."

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard."

"Isn't it?"

Wat felt the gaggle of geese flutter their wings. He squeezed his stomach muscles tight. "I mean, it's not like I want to, you know…that…yet. It's just…" He trailed off.

"You'd like the option." Geoff lay back down, his fingertips trailing Wat's forearm. "Of course you would. It's not fair, Wat, and nothing will make it so."

Wat looked down at Geoff, his eyes closed and his hair golden in the spring sunlight and thought, why can't we? Why can't I show off that he's chosen me, of all people? But there was too much at stake: people who knew him, who knew Geoff, who could make life difficult in more ways than Wat could count. Funny that now he felt forced to skulk in the shadows he wanted to be out in the open. But he'd always been a contrary bastard, so why stop now?

"Geoff, let's go somewhere."

"Hmm?"

"Soon. Let's hop a train and go somewhere. Somewhere no one knows us. _You_ know."

Geoff opened his eyes and smiled straight up at Wat. As usual, it did funny things to Wat's insides. "I do know," he said. "And I'm in."

***

"Guildford?" asked Wat as they stepped off the train. " _Guildford_?" 

"Well, I admit it's not the seething metropolis, but give me a chance, would you? There are places I want to take you."

Wat snorted. "So you're the guru of Guildford now?"

"I used to come here to visit my grandmother before she died three years ago. She was my favourite family member by a country mile. Being back here feels a little like coming home."

"Oh. Right then." Wat let his knuckles graze Geoff's. "Where first?"

"I think you should let me buy you a coffee."

"Ooh, the excitement don't stop with you."

Geoff pushed Wat's temple with his forefinger. "Oh, ye of little faith," he said. "Just wait."

They wandered through the streets, Geoff pointing out landmarks and Wat pretending to pay attention. It wasn't that what he was saying wasn't interesting—probably—it was just that Wat's brain had linked 'buy coffee' to 'date' and he was fizzing with it. They were out, together, on a date. And, okay, so no one would know looking at them, nothing they were doing suggested anything more than two mates strolling down the pavement, but Wat knew and that was enough to set the geese to flapping.

He wasn't even aware that he'd followed Geoff into a department store until the gusts of competing perfumes irritated him into a sneeze. 

"Hmm," said Wat, wiping his nose on his arm. "I'm not a Chanel No. 5 kind of girl, Geoffrey. I wouldn't waste your cash."

"Hilarious. Come on." Geoff took hold of Wat's wrist and led him towards the lifts. 

Wat looked round in momentary panic but nobody seemed to be batting an eyelash. Well, not including the white-coated make-up girls who were probably batting theirs from sheer weight of mascara making it impossible to keep their eyes open. It was only a wrist, after all.

"Holy fuck," he said. "There's a _waterfall_."

"Like it?"

Wat gripped the edge of the viewing platform and nodded. He was torn between staring out at the town and distant hills and looking down at the ponds and gardens below, children laughing as they skipped across circular stepping-stones leading to small islands vibrant with plants and bright, bright flowers. Fish darted through the water paying no mind to the chattering people seated at tables by the water's edge, forks clinking on china plates.

"Yeah, I like it."

"Grandmother told me that the roof garden was designed to unite heaven and earth. That one should be able to stand here and feel poised between the two, not quite in one or the other. Feet on the ground, head in the clouds, so to speak. She always said that was where I lived anyway, so this should feel like my second home." Geoff leaned on the railing, bending his tall body forward over it, as if readying himself to fly. Impulsively, Wat reached out and put a hand on his neck, squeezing gently. Geoff turned his head, the far away look in his eyes sharpening to a twinkle as he grinned.

"How about that frothy coffee, then?"

Froth slopped into the glass saucer as Wat hopped from stone to stone. He stopped and slurped it up in one swift move. But seriously, how was he supposed to just _walk_ across these? Geoff waited for him across the other side and for a second Wat allowed himself to stand and stare. He was so gorgeous and Wat could look as much as he liked now that they were…well, boyfriends. Even thinking the word made his heart hammer.

"Hey, mister, shift, will you?" 

Wat's reverie broke and he looked down and behind at a small girl with pigtails and a severe expression.

"Hold your flamin' horses, cheeky chops," he said, and set off once more.

"Is there anything left in the cup?"

Wat looked down. "Some." 

The last two stepping-stones were more circular platforms butting up against the railings at the edge of the roof. From here the water cascaded over the parapet and down to the floors below. 

"But what happens to it?" Wat asked, watching the seemingly endless sheet of water and wondering how the fish didn't seem to go over with it. 

"I have no idea. I prefer not to contemplate the underlying mechanism. Destroys the magic, don't you agree?"

"Nah," said Wat, shoving his cup at Geoff and leaning over the barrier as far as he could. "It's interesting, innit? Working out how things work. Kate would have it sussed easy."

"Get back from there, you plonker. There's no point working out how it works if you fall and kill yourself in the process. Besides, Kate's not here so you're stuck with me."

There was a sulky edge to Geoff's voice that made Wat grin into his chest. He straightened up and turned his back on the view. "I'm good, thanks," he said with his best slow smile, stroking Geoff's fingers as he took the glass cup back. He laughed at the gentle clinks of Geoff's own cup trembling on its saucer.

"Where to next, then?" he asked, wondering if it was the froth from the coffee that was making the happiness bubble up inside him.

"Ah, well." Geoff took his shoulder and turned him back round, pointing. "Do you see the red brick building on the hill over there?"

"Yeah."

"That fine establishment is Guildford Cathedral, our next port of call."

Wat stared. "You're taking me to _church_?"

"Yes, you filthy heathen. Church."

"I'm not the heathen here, mate." Wat may have given up regular church going with his parents' lapse in faith, but the early years of Sunday School and endless services and his grampa's lectures had ingrained in him a healthy fear of the Divine. Was he going to get all smited for being a great big homo if he put a foot over the threshold? And if he was, would it hurt? Would he deserve it?

"I have my reasons." Geoff paused, squinting at Wat in the sunlight. "Don't worry, they're not at all nefarious. Besides we'd have to live in the parish to call the banns even if they were legal."

"I reckon prob'ly fifty percent."

"What's fifty percent?"

"The amount of stuff comes out your mouth I've got no clue about."

The walk to the cathedral was more of an amble, a slow meander through the town and up the length of Stag Hill. The golden angel perched on top of the red brick came slowly into view as if checking them over for the likelihood of being Satan's minions and taking the odds that it was safe to come out. 

"Glorious, isn't it?" Geoff indicated the cathedral with an expansive sweep of his arm.

"Not bad."

"It took millions of bricks to build it, you know, and post-war money was terribly tight." Wat followed Geoff as he took them around the building. "The only way the design would ever be completed would be by an incredible feat of fund-raising, so that's exactly what they did. Some bright spark thought up the 'buy-a-brick' drive. You could buy a brick for the cathedral for the bargain price of two and six and then come up here to sign it. Somewhere, in this wonderful place, are two hundred thousand bricks with the names of the donors inscribed in perpetuity." 

Geoff ran his hand down the wall. He tapped a brick. "And my grandmother, on the very day I was born, signed a brick with my name on it. Geoffrey Chaucer is part of this great monument forever. I don't know where, of course, so in some strange way this whole cathedral is mine. Do you see?"

Wat did. At least he didn't completely not see. He nodded.

"Shall we go in?"

He nodded again.

Inside pale columns planted in two long rows rose up and up, arching in different directions like branches of a tree. Sunshine through the tall windows striped the floor with golden arrows of light. Instinctively, Wat stood straighter, raising his chin and letting the space lift him up, his lungs filling with cool air. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He may have been shaky over the whole question of God's existence, but there was something here, something in the bricks and mortar that pulled him up, made him feel more than he was, made him peaceful.

Geoff said, "Let me show you round my place." 

Wat followed him, listening with half an ear as the serene calm of the cathedral slowly began to make him itch at the edges. It wasn't that Wat wanted to shatter it, exactly; it was just that he wasn't sure he was supposed to be part of it. The urge to see what would happen if he dropped a stone into still water got the better of him and he shoved Geoff out of view underneath the curving stairs to the organ loft and kissed him, hard. Nothing happened. Nothing except the rising excitement that always accompanied their kisses, that was. Wat waited for the smiting to start, but it didn't come. He broke the kiss and grinned at Geoff's shocked expression, punching his arm as if it were a caress. Maybe he couldn't get smote if he was already smitten, like.

"You…"

"U-huh."

"You. Me."

Wat nodded, grinning. "Yup."

"But I…"

Wat's laugh was already echoing around the stone walls, sharp and bright, before he could slap his hand over his own mouth. De-wording Geoff was one of his all-time favourite things. From out of the corner of his eye he could see a robed gentleman bustling towards them.

"Hey, Wordy McWorderson, let's get out of here before they make us pray for our sins."

Geoff didn't argue.

Outside, Wat looked up at the sky and raised his hands in the air. He couldn't shake the feeling that somehow, he'd won. Geoff was already halfway to the steps that led back down the hill and he ran to catch up, leaping onto Geoff's back and grabbing on tight as Geoff fought to keep his balance.

"Bloody hell, Wat, you're a dead weight." Geoff tucked his hands under Wat's thighs and hoiking him up.

"I think you'll find it's you being a scrawny get." Wat dug his chin into Geoff's shoulder and laughed at the squawked response.

At the bottom of the steps Wat finally relented and slid down off Geoff's back taking more time than was strictly necessary to put air between them as the jogging friction down the steps had given Wat's dick ideas above its station and Wat himself a yearning to keep that close connection. The feeling didn't go away, either, and nor was Geoff in a much better state. They walked close enough that their knuckles bumped and grazed against each other with every step, they played footsie under the table in the café Geoff took them to for the best meat pie in town. Something had switched on in Wat's brain and maybe it was the lack of smiting, maybe it was being somewhere brand new, but it seemed as if something would have to give or Wat would explode.

The strange thing was the way Wat's attention was completely cut in two. Some part of him was focused only on Geoff, on every movement, every word, every expression, but the rest of him was opened up to the whole world. It was as if someone had cast a magic spell that made everything brighter and more perfect than it had any right to be, from the taste of the pie to the smiles on the faces of the passers by. Wat even appreciated the hotness of several blokes he passed on the street, and that was most definitely new.

"Geoff," he muttered, leaning close in to Geoff's ear. "Guildford got anywhere quiet?"

"What do you- Oh." Geoff touched his lips and smiled. "Let's see what we can do, shall we?"

But it seemed as if they were destined to be thwarted. Everywhere they went, other people were already there like they wanted to use the space themselves or something. Wat couldn't blame them. And he couldn't blame the law this time either; there were definitely boundaries public affection display-wise and he was not at all convinced he had the means to stay within them. Still, he was close to jumping Geoff in front of the whole freaking town when Geoff said, "In here," and tugged him down a narrow alleyway that led away from the High Street giving the ranks of restaurants and shops breathing space.

It was dark and cold where the sun hadn't penetrated and smelled of cheap disinfectant failing at its job of covering up the stale urine and puke of a good night out. But Wat didn't care. He crowded into Geoff's space, practically tripping over his heels as they went deep into the alley, his hands skimming Geoff's hips and pushing up his t-shirt to press against warm skin. Geoff stopped dead, groaning and twisting in Wat's grip, mouths finding each other in the gloom and Wat the rough wall against his back that could have been a feather bed in the finest hotel in the country for all that it mattered. 

"Geoff," he muttered against Geoff's mouth. "Please. God."

"You're killing me," Geoff said, pushing his hips against Wat's. "Do you want me dead?"

"Don't feel dead to me." Wat kissed him again, then, shutting them both up, and rocked up against Geoff, hand tracking down to his arse to pull them tighter together. 

"What the _fuck_?" The contempt in the voice ripped right through the haze that fogged Wat's brain. Suddenly Geoff was a half step away and Wat found himself staring at a gang of boot boys, every last one looking at them as if they were dog shit tracked into their mum's best parlour by an already unwelcome guest.

"Saw that ginger queer eyeing me up before. Don't want their sort round here, do we, lads?" 

The gang gave a ragged cheer and Wat reached for Geoff's wrist. 

Geoff lifted his free hand in conciliation. "Gentlemen, be reasonable," he said. "Are we not all men? If you cut us, do we not-"

Wat looked at the confused and twisted faces of the gang and then back at Geoff, working up to some big speech or other. 

"Are you fucking _mental_?" he asked. "Run, you wanker! Really, _really_ fast."

"Get 'em!"

"Bash 'em!"

"Fucking queer bastards!"

The pounding of heavy boots on concrete was all Wat could hear as he ran and ran, Geoff leading as they hared through the streets. He zigzagged them this way and that and Wat could only trust that he knew what he was doing. The sound of their pounding footsteps changed as they ran over the iron bridge across the river, dulling again as they dodged through the crowd that spilled onto the pavement outside a large, white building.

"Watch my pint!" Wat heard and held up his hands in wordless apology, not taking his eyes from Geoff, nor slowing for even a second. 

They ran round the back of a church and then Geoff led them in seemingly strange directions—a left turn here, a right there—until Wat was so turned about he could have been in Timbuktu for all he knew. The footsteps behind never quite disappeared, and they kept running, though Wat's lungs were scratched raw and a stitch needled his ribs. After what seemed at least a marathon later, they rounded a corner and Wat was surprised to find that he recognised where they were. It was the train station.

They ran inside and Geoff yelled, "London train!" at a nearby uniformed attendant.

"Platform one. But you better hurry. She's getting set to leave." She pointed the way.

Wat could hear the slam of doors as they took the steps to the platform two at a time. At the far end a guard stood, arm raised, whistle to his mouth. 

"Shit!" Wat yelled and dived for a door. He wrenched it open and lunged into the carriage almost on top of Geoff, slamming the door tight behind them. The whistle blew, steam hissed and the train juddered as it began to pull out of the station. Wat got to his feet in time to see the boot boys tearing onto the platform, chasing the train as it gathered speed, yelling with thwarted rage. Wat pulled down the window, leaned out and pulled the Vs.

As the platform dwindled, he shoved the window back up and turned back into the carriage, empty except for Geoff sprawled out on a row of seats, hand against his heart as he fought to get his breathing under control, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. 

"Well, that could have been a different kind of dead," Geoff panted.

Wat had a flash of Geoff's face swollen and bruised and the cold lump of fear he'd been carrying dissolved in the scalding hot flush of anger that raced through his blood, standing his hairs on end. With an inarticulate yell, Wat launched himself at a set of seat cushions, pummelling them with every ounce of energy he had left in him until his knuckles burned with the friction of it.

"Wat," he heard Geoff say. "Wat. Wat. _Wat._." 

Wat jerked his head around in time with a final punch.

" _What?_ "

Geoff shrugged, helpless. "Those seats didn't chase you half way through the town. Leave them be and come and sit down."

Wat, teeth gritted, dug his nails into his palms wishing that he'd bitten them less, and shook his head.

"Please, Wat." Geoff pushed himself upright and rubbed at his forehead. He looked defeated. "I'll understand if you don't want to do this…us…any longer. Just…"

As if his words were shears, the threads of anger snapped and Wat was on Geoff in two strides, straddling his thighs and grabbing his chin to meet him for a kiss. Wat kissed as deep and as nasty as he knew how, grinding his hips against Geoff, already hard. Sparks set off across his whole body and he ground down again, sliding his lips down Geoff's jawline.

"Are you sure? Wat, are you _sure_?"

The thing was, Wat didn't care. Not any more. He couldn't hide it, the way he felt about Geoff; it wasn't in him. All he cared about was the way Geoff bucked up against him, the way Geoff's heart hammered under his hand. This was where this had always been heading and it might be foolish and it might be dangerous and it might be reckless, but Wat still didn't look both ways when he crossed the street and he'd never broken a bone that didn't fix. He pressed his head into Geoff's neck and nodded, grabbing Geoff's unsure hand and placing it firmly on his arse. 

"Oh, thank all of the gods." Geoff tugged Wat in close and held on.

It was so easy to let go after all this time, to lose the fight Wat hadn't really realised he'd been in. When he came, the geese in his stomach burst into swift motion, soft, white feathers floating down behind closed eyelids. Before he'd even had time to consider the ramifications of the sticky mess he'd made of his, thankfully black, jeans, the train began to slow. He rolled himself off Geoff and settled next to him, thighs pressed together. 

Geoff looked at him with wide, dark eyes. "We should-"

Wat shrugged and without taking his eyes off Geoff's face, took hold of his hand, laced their fingers together and didn't let go. Sure, it made getting his ticket out for the conductor somewhat tricky, but, hey, at least it was in his back pocket and the eye roll they got was totally worth it. By the time the train pulled into their station, some of the old feelings of fear and paranoia had crept back and Wat slid his hand out of Geoff's, tucking it into his armpit safe out of the way as the brakes squealed them to a stop. But it wasn't the same as when they'd left that morning and they both knew it. Something was different now. The sex genie had been well and truly rubbed out of the big gay lamp, that was for sure, and Wat had no intention of corking that sucker back up, not for all the stupid laws in the land. Not for all the stupid people either.

***


	7. Chapter 7

Wat blamed the sex for the way summer snuck up on them. Someone once said something about masturbating too much sending you blind, so it stood to reason that constant shagging could do some serious damage to other brain pathways. Course, it could also be the fact that there'd been snow _in June_. That was bound to throw a bloke off track, seasonwise. But here summer was, and the summerhouse in Geoff's garden had seen the evolution of a sex life from its initial hopeful but inexperienced fumblings to relative competence—from fully-dressed nought to naked orgasm in sixty seconds or less when there was a need for speed. 

It hadn't ever seen this, though. Okay, that wasn't strictly true, but close enough. Another hot day, the air swollen and humid weighing Wat down, slowing his movements, a storm threatening to break overhead at any moment. But it wasn't the static in the air that was dragging the hairs on Wat's arms on end. He paused on the threshold of the summerhouse, arrested by the sight of Geoff sprawled across the one-armed settee (Wat refused to call it a shez long, no matter how much Geoff insisted), resplendent in his mum's negligee, one arm cast over his head, one hand cupping the bulge in his groin. His mouth was a gash of red and he looked up at Wat through heavy-lidded eyes, lips barely tipping into a smile.

" _Jesus_ ," Wat breathed.

"You remember, don't you?"

Yes. Yes, of course he remembered. Wat was suddenly dizzy and didn't know whether to blame the memory of all the alcohol he'd drunk that day, the humidity, or the unbelievable attractiveness of his boyfriend. Without thinking he moved across the room, sitting down by Geoff's feet. From here he could catch glimpses of Geoff's underwear as the slight movements of his hand shifted the negligee back and forth. Wat swallowed and ran a hand along the hem of the slip. It was so smooth. The last time he hadn't had a chance to touch. The last time he hadn't kissed back. 

Twisting, he crawled his way up Geoff's body and kissed him, lipstick smearing slick over his mouth, tasting faintly of birthdays and badly-knitted Christmas jumpers. The silk slid like water under his hands and Wat was filled with the urge to press himself against it, the most fragile of barriers between the two of them. He was naked almost before the thought had been fully formed, shoving his hands under the negligee to pull Geoff free. 

It was like nothing Wat had ever felt before, the impossibly cool slip-slide of the silk against his heated skin, softness he should be able to sink into but for the hardness of Geoff underneath. He looked up at Geoff and saw it there in his eyes, that he'd known exactly what this would do to Wat. For all of Wat's bluster and noise, for all of Geoff's sheltered, pampered life, Geoff had Wat's heart and Wat's dick and that gave him power. And that Wat didn't mind handing it over scared Wat most of all. He twisted a shoulder strap around a finger. "Bastard," he said.

Geoff arched his back, grinned like a cat about to get the cream and said, "I know."

Afterwards, squashed together far too close for comfort in this heat, Geoff looked mournfully down at the ruination of his mother's negligee. "Well, that's not coming out," he said and smacked the back of Wat's head against his muffled laugh. 

"Let's go away," said Geoff.

"What, another day trip? Because that worked out so well the last time."

"No, I mean let's go on holiday. Wouldn't that be wonderful, the two of us on the road together?"

"How do you mean? Camping, like?"

"A tent could come in handy, but I was thinking more along the lines of youth hostelling around Europe. We could see where the tide takes us. Or, if I must be prosaic, the train."

"It's a nice world yours, innit?"

"What do you mean?"

"The world where you can just pop off on a moment's notice, don't matter if you've got responsibilities. Like, oh, I don't know, a _job_." 

"That's not- You can take some time off, can't you? Everyone's entitled to a holiday. Come away with me, Wat." Geoff curled a hand around Wat's ear, but Wat swatted it away, irritated.

"Not everyone can afford to take time off. And even if I could I'm not made of money, am I? I've got no savings, no passport, how exactly do you think this could work? Maybe I could stretch to a weekend in Bognor Regis but travelling abroad? You're kidding me."

"But…"

Wat rapped on Geoff's forehead. "I've got no money. None. What about that do you not get, posh boy? You've met me. You see where I live, you see where I work. How much do you think a potman gets? I'll tell you. Enough to help out my folks with board and lodging and a little bit over to spend on whatever I need. Got no secret benefactor or long lost uncle leaving me wads of cash. I can't do it. Okay?"

"Oh, that's not a problem. I'll pay. It'll be worth it for your company."

Wat sat up, sweat stuck skin burning as they pulled apart. It matched the rising heat in his belly. "Fuck off. You can't just _buy_ your way out of stuff. I'm not your fucking _whore_."

Geoff's eyes widened. "I never said you were! I can't see why I shouldn't be able to pay for something that will benefit us both. I have the money and you don't. Let me do this for us. I don't mind at all."

"No." Wat got to his feet and started scrambling into his clothes. "You live here in this posh house with your posh parents and you just, you _glide_ through everything like you don't even have to think about it, like can you manage with the holes in your boots for another month or are you gonna need to give up on the idea of getting your record player fixed so it don't scratch up every third LP you put on it? Things'll just happen for you, won't they? You'll piss off to uni and then you'll get some stuck up fucking job at the BBC or whatever and then you'll marry some stuck up fucking woman and you'll _summer_ in some stuck up fucking second home in France and nothing will ever be a problem because having money fixes everything, right? Pride don't even enter into it for you." He shoved his feet into his trainers. "You don't fucking _mind_. Well, I do. Fuck you and fuck your money."

He didn't stick around long enough to hear Geoff say anything except for, "Wat, I-" before he was sprinting across the grass and getting as far away as fast as he could.

***

Kate said, "Do I _look_ like the kind of person who'd lose a letter?" 

Wat had to admit that no. No, she did not. "So what do you want to do then?"

She shrugged. "He's just a little boy with a bad attitude. He's clever, sure, but he's not canny. He'll be thinking maybe he can use it for something so he won't have chucked it. Chances are he's stashed it somewhere obvious."

"I'm not breaking into his house. Not even for you."

"Let's call that Plan B, shall we?"

"How about Plan Never," Wat muttered and then, louder, "And Plan A…"

"There's an open evening at college. Come with me and I can pretend to show you around and we can get into his locker. Ten to one it's in there."

Wat grinned. "Can we leave him a present in return?"

"What exactly do you have in mind?"

"Great how milk keeps in this weather, innit?"

"I knew there was a reason I kept you around." Kate patted his arm.

"What? My radiant good looks aren't enough for you? I'm gonna need a couple of paperclips and a set of pliers. When do we start?"

"We've already started."

Wat clapped his hands together. "Right then," he said. "Let's do this."

Kate's college was an unprepossessing concrete block, but inside it burst into life. There were examples of student artwork on display boards, the cheerful sounds of a band mostly in time with each other floated down the corridor and the whole place was buzzing with teenagers and parents with expressions that ranged from terrified to borderline explosive excitement. The humidity that still threatened outside followed them in and the air fairly hummed with the heat of all the bodies. It was easy enough to get lost in the crowd. Wat followed Kate into a corridor that smelled faintly of rotten eggs. Inside one of the classrooms someone was talking about marshmallows and hydrogen peroxide to a rapt looking audience. The corridor turned a right angle and then came to a dead end with banks of lockers on three sides. 

Kate counted along the rows and tapped her fingernails against one of the lockers. "This is it."

"What's the letter for again?" Wat pulled the paperclips out of his pocket and set to unbending them.

Kate sighed. "It's my scholarship application to the Caroline Hassell Trust. So I can go to do engineering at university. Don't you want to know why you're committing a minor crime for me?"

Wat looked up from what he was doing. "Nah, not really. It's you, isn't it? Don't need to know your reason, it'll always be a good'un."

Kate went to the end of the corridor to keep watch, looking back over her shoulder. "Stop making me regret you're gay," she said. 

Wat let one rip. The rotten egg smell doubled.

"Yeah, I'm over it." 

"You are welcome."

Wat had first learned to pick locks out of boredom from all the times he'd been sent out of class. He was chuffed to find his skills hadn't all deserted him. The pins clicked one by one until he had all five. He pushed on the other clip and the padlock released. 

"Got you, you fucker." He wriggled the lock free of the hasp. A muted round of applause rose from down the corridor. "Someone appreciates me," he said with a mock bow.

"I appreciate you. A lot." Kate came back to his shoulder, opening up the locker and shuffling through its contents. "Ah, got it!" She drew out a long, brown envelope and stuffed it in her bag.

"Now gimme the other thing."

She pulled out a small jar and handed it over. "What are you going to do with it?"

Wat took it from her and rifled through the locker. It was mostly textbooks and your basic crap that seems to accumulate in storage spaces whether you remembered putting it there or not. At the back there was a scarf stuffed into a corner—obviously left over from colder times. That would do. Wat unscrewed the jar and very carefully soaked the scarf, making sure not to damage any of the books. It wasn't that he had moral objections to getting books all mucky, but Fairbairn would be touching those soon enough and Wat didn't want to give the game away.

"There," he said, passing the jar back. He closed the door and reattached the padlock. "Job done. Now let's get out of here."

They rounded the corner just as the crowd Wat had caught a glimpse of earlier were pouring out of the lab. They slipped in amongst them and found their way back to the open doors, sauntering out as if they hadn't a care in the world.

"You don't think the whistling might be considered overkill?" asked Kate as they headed towards the bus stop. "There's such a thing as _too_ casual."

"It's that bloody band," said Wat. "Got that tune stuck in my head now."

"Fair enough." Kate looked up at him, bumping their arms together. "Thanks," she said.

"Can't have you missing out on university, can I? Who's gonna build me bridges and tell me to get over them if it's not you?"

Kate laughed and stuck her arm out for the bus.

The top floor was deserted, just the way Wat liked it. He sat in the corner of the back seat and spread his legs along the length of it despite Kate's disapproving tut.

"So are you going to tell me what's wrong, then?"

"Huh?"

Kate leaned over the seat in front, chin resting on folded arms. "C'mon, Wat, I'm not stupid. Geoff's not here and you haven't mentioned him all evening. And as delightful as it is not to have to hear far too much information about your love life, I've never had that luck. So. What gives?"

Wat had very carefully not been thinking about the whole situation because there lay a whole load of mess he wasn't sure how he was supposed to clean up. He looked away, staring out of the rear window and shrugged. 

"We had a row."

"What about?"

"He wants to go away. The two of us."

"So far so good."

"Yeah." Wat turned to face her, feeling his whole body tighten. "But he wants to go abroad. And he wants to _pay_."

"Ah."

"I can't. He can't. He doesn't get it, Kate. He wants us to have this grand adventure together or whatever and he'll pay and then he'll swan off and…I got _responsibilities_. I pay my own way. I don't want to be bought off." He thumped the cushion with the side of his fist, swearing as it glanced off a badly sited screw.

Kate knelt up. "You know he's not thinking of it like that, don't you? I mean, I get where you're coming from, I do. And I'm not saying you shouldn't feel that way. But it's just not a _thing_ to him like it is to you. He's oblivious and a bit rubbish, not some lord of the manor trying to bribe one of his serfs into opening her legs. His legs. I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it."

"Yeah," Wat exhaled on a long breath. "I know. Part of me knows. I don't know. Oh god." He dropped his head back laughing at himself. "No, I do. It's just…" He trailed off. There was a brief silence where Wat could feel Kate's watchful eyes on him.

"It's not just the money, is it?" she said.

Wat shook his head. "He'll be gone and I'll be here. Don't matter if we have a stupid adventure if it's the last thing we do."

"Oh, Wat." She reached out and stroked down his arm until she found his hand and clasped it. "This is really shitty, isn't it? Whatever you do, he's going away, so there's no winning, not if you stick by your principles or if you don't. And you don't even get to do the abandoned wife thing, not with having to hide…oh god, I nearly quoted the Beatles at you. I'm sorry." She let go of his hand. "But you're on the clock, Wat. Don't waste the seconds because the minutes scare you. The alarm's going to go off either way."

The gloom of late evening suddenly brightened as lightning sheared the sky. A loud crack of thunder shook the bus and fat raindrops started to fall. Wat crossed his arms across a stomach that churned with far too many conflicting emotions for his comfort and nodded. "I think I'll stay on the bus a bit," he said. "You'll be all right getting home?"

Kate nodded. "I'm a big girl. And besides, this is the best kind of rain to get wet in."

***

Wat ran from the bus stop to Geoff's house but was still half-soaked by the time he arrived. He checked the garden gate; it was locked. That wasn't going to stop him, though, and he hauled himself up and over, a sharp scraping pain in his arm as he twisted to land as quietly as possible. He ignored it and bent down, running his fingers over the gravel in the border, picking out the largest stones. 

Geoff's room overlooked the garden and with both a window and door should have been an easy enough target, especially with the remains of dusk still lingering about despite the heavy clouds. The balcony added an extra complication and Wat took a moment to regret that he'd never taken William up on his offer to teach him how to bowl. He pushed the wet hair out of his eyes and took aim with the first pebble. It clattered off the wall and fell, bouncing off the patio furniture with a metallic _tink_. Wat winced and tensed, ready to run if the wrong light came on. He listened to the dull thud of his heart for a count of twenty and then tried again. This time he hit the target. Well, if he was honest about it he'd been aiming for the window and got the door, but glass was glass, after all.

Nothing happened. Nothing except getting wetter and more frustrated. Wat took the remaining handful and threw it all at once. If something was going to break he might as well do it properly. But both window and door held and he was rewarded with a dim brightening of the room. A few seconds later the door swung open, Geoff half-silhouetted in the doorway, holding himself very still. 

Suddenly unsure of what to do, Wat raised a hopeful hand and whispered, "All right?"

Geoff came to the edge of the balcony and peered down at Wat, his whole body slumped as if the tension had caught itself on the doorstep and slid out of him as he moved forward.

"Wat? What on _earth_? No, don't say anything. Stay there. I'm coming down."

Wat nodded pointlessly as Geoff disappeared again and turned his face up to the sky, opening his mouth and counting the raindrops that splashed onto his tongue. There was the slick, dull slide of a greased door and Geoff said, "That's attractive."

Wat jerked his head back down. "Eight," he said.

"If you say so."

Geoff pulled the conservatory door to behind his back, squinting up at the rain. He shook his head and stepped out from the shelter of the balcony above. "Not that I'm not delighted to see you," he said, voice kept low, "but if you hadn't noticed, there's a storm." 

As if to illustrate his point, a flash of sheet lightning bleached the sky and the thunder rolled loud and long, almost overhead. Automatically, Wat ducked; he'd learned the hard way to dodge at approaching danger. That way you saved yourself for the swing after. Geoff touched his arm and it was all Wat could do to stop himself balling his fist and going for the uppercut. Instead he straightened up and failed to meet Geoff's eyes.

"Should I start?"

Wat nodded, setting his jaw.

"I'm so glad you came. I've been thinking about everything you said and I'm sorry, Wat. I thought I was considering us, but really I was considering me. It's selfish of me to want you close on my terms. I know that now. It's awfully hard to walk a mile in someone else's shoes when ones own are so very comfortable, but I'm supposed to know better. All human activity should be within my scope. Not just to be a good writer—to be a decent person. I'm afraid the blinkers have been on terribly tight and I may need some help in keeping them off. If you'll still have me…?"

Geoff took a step forward and Wat one back. "Wat…?"

"Wait." Wat wiped his hair away from his forehead with the heels of his hands. "It's okay. Just let me talk a bit. You can't have all the words."

Geoff regarded Wat with a steady gaze and said nothing.

"I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have yelled like that. I should've explained better. But it's not…" Wat paused, taking a deep breath and curling his hands into fists. "Look, there's the money thing and it's good that you get it, that you're trying to get it, but it's more, right? Like having adventures and making memories and stuff would be great and everything, but then when it's all over what happens? You go off and I stay here." 

He stopped, holding up a finger to let Geoff know he wasn't finished, willing the half-formed thoughts into some sort of order that would make sense and not make him look like a dick. He curled his finger back in, shaking his head. Now or never.

"See there's no more all-in-colour antics or whatever, there's just a you-shaped hole where you're supposed to be and no more time. And I'll be doing the same stuff I was always doing but with no you and just them memories fading like photographs."

He shook his head again. "And it's different for you 'cos you'll be off in a new place where there was never a me-shaped hole to begin with and all these things will happen and our stuff? The stuff we did, that's just back then and not here now in that flaming great encylowhatsit of your life, Geoffrey Chaucer. I don't want to be past. I don't want to be chapters three to five." He ran out of steam and shrugged. The part where love made you helpless? He didn't like that at all.

"Wat." Geoff's voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Oh, lord, we are so stuck, aren't we? But there's no way of knowing what will happen. Not for either of us. I would conjure you a vision of the future if that could help, but certainty isn't a thing we homo sapiens are generally allowed." He closed the gap between them and wrapped his arms round Wat's waist. Wat reached up to grasp Geoff's neck. "Except for this. I love you, Wat, and you love me. For better or for worse it's what we have. Let the future take care of itself; we don't have the time to waste." 

He bent his head to kiss Wat's wrist and recoiled. "Blood! What did you do?"

Wat stared at his arm, puzzled. Sure enough there was a long scratch half the length of his forearm and blood oozed from it, mingling with the rain to slip away in dark rivulets. 

"Oh!" he said. "The gate. I thought I done something when I hopped it over." He looked at the wound again. "Blimey, it don't half sting now I'm thinking about it."

Geoff cradled Wat's arm in his hands. "Come inside. We'll tidy you up and get you dry."

"Yeah. Just in time to get wet again waiting for the bus home."

Geoff, head bent, looked up through rain-beaded eyelashes. "Stay with me," he said. "Stay here. We've never slept together—slept in the same bed, I mean—and I want to. That is, if you want to. Too."

Wat's geese fluttered their wings. "Yeah." He smiled. "Yeah. But what about your parents?"

"The last time my mother deigned to come into my room was when I was eleven. I had measles. I'm not entirely sure my father even knows where my room is. It shouldn't be a problem as long as we don't make a racket."

"After you, then."

Inside, Wat leaned against a counter in the kitchen as Geoff opened half the cupboards in search of something, eventually pulling a small Tupperware box down from a high shelf. He cleaned Wat's arm in total silence, squeezing it gently every time Wat hissed in a breath. He watched as Geoff cut a piece of gauze and laid it over the cut, aware of the quiet dripping as soaked clothes gave up their struggle against gravity and water puddled the floor.

Geoff pressed down the last strip of tape and tidied everything away. Still silent, he took Wat's hand and led him upstairs and into his room. "Stay," he commanded in a whisper and left.

Wat did as he was told, clammy skin pimpling with goosebumps. He shivered and slapped his upper arms, shifting from foot to foot. 

"New mating ritual?" muttered Geoff, returning and tossing some towels on the bed. "Come here."

Slowly, slowly, he stripped Wat until he was completely naked and then picked up a towel. Wat stood completely acquiescent as Geoff rubbed him down, the warm softness of the towel chasing the goosebumps away. A wave of sleepiness washed over him and he groped for the rumpled bed, finding his way under the covers. He watched Geoff through half-closed eyes as he stripped and towelled himself dry and then climbed into bed behind Wat, tucking his thighs up under Wat's and draping an arm across his chest. Wat lost the battle against the weight of his eyelids, eyes drifting closed and let his breath out slow and steady, lightly pushing back against Geoff just to feel the resistance of Geoff's body against his.

"'s nice," he said. "Sleep tight."

"Mmm." Geoff shifted and his lips brushed almost imperceptibly against Wat's ear. He whispered, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

"Eh?"

"Today had its own troubles. Leave tomorrow's be. Time enough to worry about those then. I may be a horrible excuse for an Anglican, but the Bible is a book when all's said and done. And sometimes a useful one."

Wat covered Geoff's hand with his own. "Might be right," he said and let himself fall asleep.

***

The sun had long since burned the storm clouds away by the time Wat woke. For a second he was confused because his duvet had never been so heavy, but then the weight resolved itself into legs and arms and Wat smiled, stretching himself against it. Something hard pressed against his back and the smile widened. At least part of Geoff was awake and happy to see him. He gave an experimental push back with his hips and was rewarded by a tightening of the grip of the human octopus Geoff had turned into. 

"Morning," mumbled Geoff against Wat's neck.

"Morning." Wat jerked his hips back again. "I'd ask what's up but turns out I already know the answer. Perv."

"Oh, because of course I'm the only one." Geoff reached down to take Wat in hand, giving him a sharp enough tug to make Wat wince.

"Don't get cocky," Wat said. "It's always like that first thing."

"What a shame." Geoff tugged again, more gently this time. "Because I was intending to get very, very c-"

Before he could finish there was a sharp rap on the door and Geoff froze, tightening his hold. 

"Geoffrey, darling, are you decent?" His mother's voice floated through the bedroom door.

Wat twisted his head round and he and Geoff stared at each other in horror. The knock came again.

"Geoffrey?"

Geoff shoved at Wat's shoulders, whispering "Under the bed!" 

Wat didn't need telling twice and hit the floor, rolling himself underneath just as the door swung open.

"Are you going to waste the entire day sleeping, darling? What about your little job?"

The mattress creaked and sagged as Geoff moved. Wat had to admire the manoeuvre as the covers fell over the edge of the bed, hiding him more completely. 

"It's my day off."

"Really? Well then, do try not to fritter away the hours. You won't have anyone to keep you to the straight and narrow soon, you know. Perhaps now would be a good time to learn to take responsibility for yourself before it becomes a daily necessity."

"Of course, Mother." Wat heard the tightness in Geoff's voice. It always seemed to him that if you accidentally walked between Geoff and his mum when they were talking the air itself would shatter. It made his shoulder blades itch.

"Then that's settled. Your father's case settled early and we've decided to go to the gîte for three weeks. Of course, were it not for your little job you would be welcome to join us, but it does seem that this is a wonderful opportunity for you to experience life without our support. Blod will still come in, of course, so you are unlikely to starve."

There was a pause and then Geoff said, "Right. So when are you leaving?"

"As soon as we've finished packing. Your father is very insistent. " Her laugh was like glass. "I can't remember the last time we were so spontaneous."

"Have a wonderful time." The mattress dipped again and Wat heard footfalls as Geoff stood up. "Don't worry about me. You're right, it will be a good experience."

"Oh, I'm not worried. Do put some clothes on, darling. Nudity is so terribly vulgar." There was the sound of kisses that came nowhere near skin and then the door closing.

"Come out, come out wherever you are," Geoff murmured.

Wat rolled back out and sat up. "Your mum's a bitch," he said, looking up at Geoff. And then, "Sorry."

Geoff shook his head. "You're not wrong." He held out his hand and Wat grabbed it, letting Geoff haul him to his feet. "I used to think she'd like me more when I was older, but apparently not. Perhaps when I leave home."

Wat opened his mouth to reply, but what could you say to something like that? He shut it again.

Geoff shrugged and jumped backwards onto the bed, tugging Wat along with him. "Don't fret about my emotional well-being. I'm not lacking for maternal care. There was my grandmother and I have Blod. Now. Stop looking at me with those big eyes. Do you want to hear my marvellous plan or not?"

"Go on."

"No parents for three weeks. What say you come and stay? I'll give you a key and then if you're working late you can choose to go home or come here. We'll only have to be careful when Blod's here. The rest of the time we can do as we like. Say yes."

Three weeks? Three weeks to spend together without the constant worry of discovery? Wat ruffled his fingers through Geoff's hair pretending to search for something.

"What on earth are you-?"

"Looking for the bow," said Wat. "Present this great it should be a bloody huge one."

***

It seemed to Wat like the whole having a boyfriend thing had flicked something on in his brain, like some kind of sixth sense. Before the world had been divided into people Wat knew and people Wat didn't. Now there was this whole other section (with that maths circle overlap he'd never been able to remember the name of) that, well, sort of stood out, like they'd been eating _Ready Brek_ or had their own personal working spotlight. You were supposed to label things, Wat remembered that at least from his maths lessons, and this one was simple enough: Blokes Wat Fowlehurst Would Not Kick Out of Bed if He Didn't Have Geoff In It Already And He Had Nothing Better To Do. Looking back, he probably should have seen the whole queer as a nine bob note thing coming. 

There was one guy he noticed, a bargain basement Robert Redford with a 'stache he could definitely afford to lose, who noticed Wat right back. He'd time his bar runs for when Wat was behind it sorting out the glassware. Once or twice might have been coincidence, but it had been every time since the guy had started drinking at The Phoenix a few weeks before. Wat had to admit he was flattered. Moustache aside, the whole Robert Redford thing was definitely doing it for him. The guy had a piss poor selection of cheesy not-quite-pick-up lines, but Wat would grin and respond because, hey, there was solid wood between them and Geoff back at home, so where was the harm?

"Good action," said Robert Redford, nodding towards the glass Wat was polishing. "Flick of the wrist. Just the way I like it. Really makes the glasses gleam."

"You should see me handle those brasses," Wat said, nodding up at the ornaments above the bar. "Secret is spit and a good rubdown. Shines 'em up good and proper, that."

He tallied himself up one on the scoreboard at Robert Redford's speechless fish face and sauntered off to collect more glasses, thinking no more about it. That is, until he took a crate of empties out into the alley just past closing. Wat hummed to himself as he stacked the crate with care on top of an already precarious pile. 

"All right?"

The empties jangled as Wat jumped at the voice that came from directly behind him. "Fuck!" He steadied the crates and then whirled round to find himself face to face with the Robert Redford-a-like. 

"Don't _do_ that! I could have had that whole thing over and then what? Lose my job, probl'y. _And_ be clearing the glass until the next bloody blue moon. Who came and stole your common sense then, eh?"

Robert Redford held up his hands. "I didn't think. It wasn't my best move ever, I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you."

Wat folded his arms, considering. "Yeah? How?"

Robert Redford apparently owned octopus arms because it seemed to Wat like he had hands everywhere at once, pulling Wat in and planting him one on the lips. With some little difficulty, Wat untangled his own arms and shoved the man off.

"What the fuck you think you're doing? I got a boyfriend, mate. I don't go with strangers in back alleys."

The man shook his head. "Stop being a tease, kid. You've been flirting with me for weeks. I know you want it." He stepped close again, hands going for Wat's jeans and there was only one choice Wat could make. He pulled back his arm and lamped him square in the jaw. It wasn't the most powerful punch he'd ever landed but enough to send the man staggering back on to his arse, hitting the ground with a satisfying thump.

"I told you, didn't I? Got cloth ears or something? I don't fancy you."

Rubbing his jaw, Robert Redford looked up at him with a wry smile.

Wat shrugged, dropping to the floor. "Okay. You got a point. But I'm with someone so it don't matter if I like the look of you or not."

"You wouldn't have to tell him."

"No."

They regarded each other in silence for a long moment and then Wat said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Go on, then."

Wat nodded. This was the perfect opportunity to get some advice from someone who had to know more than him about matters of, well, of a delicate nature, but _talking_ about this stuff? The question was there, fully formed in his brain and all queued up ready to come out only it was entirely possible his head would explode from embarrassment before he'd got even half way through.

"I said go on, then."

"Hang on. I will. Wait." Wat swivelled on his haunches so that he had to look sideways to see Robert Redford's face. "I wanna…tell me how it works. You know, _doing_ it…fucking…the gay way."

Robert Redford laughed. "So all you do with your boyfriend is kiss and cuddle, eh?"

"No! We done lots of…All sorts even. I don't mean that, I mean…" He circled a forefinger and thumb, pumping his other forefinger in and out of the hole. "That. You know."

"Ah, anal. I get you, kid. Sure, let's rap about that."

Wat expected the embarrassment explosion was imminent. He screwed up his eyes and nodded. His eyes widened as Robert Redford explained in explicit detail, his body unable to decide if he was turned on or terrified. 

"Thanks," he said, as the man's voice tailed off. "That helps."

"Does it? Well then, how's about you give me a handjob as payment?"

Wat grinned, getting to his feet. "Fuck off," he said, holding out his hand to help Robert Redford up.

"Worth a shot." The man patted Wat's arm. "Good luck with that." He turned and began to walk back up the alley, stopping to look over his shoulder. "And if it doesn't work out, you know where to find me."

"Mmm," said Wat, his mind a million miles away.

Later, pressed up against a sleepy Geoff, he said, "Before you leave, I think we should do it, like. You know. Like fuck." He closed his eyes and fought against the embarrassment that wanted to keep him dumb. "Like anal."

Geoff stiffened against him. "Wat," he said. "Wat, love, I'm sorry. I'm not sure I want that." He shifted round to face Wat, hand resting lightly against Wat's ribs. "I have had sex with—fucked—girls and I won't lie, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but-"

"Girls?"

" _A_ girl. Don't change the subject." Geoff pinched Wat's side and got a mild kick in the shins in return. " _But_. But I'm not entirely convinced I want to be on the receiving end."

"Oh, is that all?" Wat relaxed. "No, see, that's not it, is it? I want you to fuck me, not the other way. I want…" Come on words, he urged. But how to explain the strange sensation he had that it was somehow of vital importance that Geoff be inside him, be part of him? It didn't make any sense to Wat, so how could he expect it to make sense to Geoff? The scab on his arm itched and he scratched at it absent-mindedly.

Geoff put a hand over Wat's. "Don't," he said. "It'll leave a scar."

Wat looked at their joined hands and said nothing.

"I just want to," he said in the end. "Please. We got a bit of time so you can get used to the idea, if you like." Not as much time as Wat would've liked. The weeks were barrelling past and there was nothing he could do about it. "We don't have to set a date or nothing. Not like we're getting hitched. It's just a different sort of sex really, right?" Wat's face heated; this felt perilously close to begging and that was not something he did. Ever. 

He was just about to fling back the covers and stalk off somewhere, naked or not, he didn't care, when Geoff said, "All right. Why the bloody hell not?" and all the fight went out of him in an instant.

"But I don't want to hurt you and for all you'd think my dear alma mater would be a hotbed of information on such matters, I am as a newborn babe in the dark, I'm afraid. So-"

"Funny you should mention that." Wat leaned forward and kissed him. "Don't worry. I got that covered."

"Wonderful. I shall pencil you in, then."

"You really don't know nothing if you think you're putting a pencil up my bum," said Wat and rolled out of the way of the flying pillow just in time.

***

In the end it went nothing like the way they'd planned. Another hot day towards the end of Wat's temporary residence found the pair of them lounging in the large corner bath to cool down, legs hooked over legs in ways that should have been impossible. They'd been in there long enough for a filched bottle of champagne to stand empty at either end and for Wat's extremities to have pruned up like an old granny out of hand cream and nearly out of time. 

"Jacuzzi," said Wat and farted with a roar, the bubbles rising through the water and popping in quick succession.

"No, no, no. That's all flash and no substance. Like this." Geoff shifted to one side and a small, steady stream of bubbles flowed to the surface in magnificent progression. Wat refused to be impressed.

"All right then. How about this?" He raised one arse cheek and blew to no avail. His offering came out as a tiny squeak and one sad, solitary bubble.

"That was dreadful." Geoff lifted his arms. "Winner!"

Wat let his face drop into a concerned expression, sticking out his lower lip. "Think there might have been a bit of follow through."

Geoff's arms fell as he was struck by horror. "You did _not_." He disentangled himself with remarkable speed, leapt out of the bath and shook himself like a dog, water droplets spraying in all directions.

Wat folded his arms with a flourish. "Nope." 

Geoff lunged for Wat who somehow managed to slide underneath him out of the bath and away leaving only wet footprints behind.

"You little shit!" called Geoff, chasing after him.

"Exactly!"

Wat led them both back to Geoff's bedroom. It wasn't like he wanted to evade capture and it was easy enough to 'let' Geoff grab his shoulders and tumble them both forwards on to the bed. Geoff sat up across Wat's thighs, hands slipping easily down Wat's wet back to dig his fingers in his ribs, Wat squirming to get away, laughing.

"Finally we meet, my nemesis." Geoff gave Wat's arse a slap. "You cannot escape me. I will be victorious in this our greatest battle. Or tickle fight. Either way works."

"Oh, but you will fail." Wat bucked up in an attempt to dislodge Geoff who only tightened the grip of his legs and bent down low over Wat to whisper in his ear.

"I never fail, Mr Bond."

The twin sensations of the soft voice in Wat's ear and the slow slip of Geoff's hardness along Wat's cleft cut right to the centre of him, blocking out everything, making him freeze. 

"Aha!" Geoff was triumphant. "Do you sub-"

"Do it, Geoff," Wat urged, angling his hips to push up against Geoff, this time dislodging him the last thing on his mind.

"Do w…Oh." Now it was Geoff's turn to freeze. "Are you sure?"

"Do it."

The pressure was back on Wat's thighs as Geoff sat up straight. "Right. I'll get the…er…the er…"

Wat gripped the sheets and turned his head to watch unblinking as Geoff rolled over and half disappeared off the edge of the bed, returning with the jar of Vaseline they'd stashed under it ready for this moment. 

"So I should do the thing with-" Geoff sounded nervous and Wat felt the edges of it slicing at his champagne blur.

"No. Don't. Just…let's go, yeah?"

Geoff disappeared from Wat's view. Wat pulled his knees up and shoved a pillow down under his hips, hoping Robert Redford wasn't out there somewhere tutting at a stupid kid who ignored most of his advice. He heard the click of the jar lid twisting off and looked over his shoulder to see Geoff liberally applying the Vaseline. Wat swallowed, thrown back to the mix of horny and horrified he'd been in the alley. He tried to grab the edges of his soft alcohol haze to wrap around himself and tell him it would all be good.

Suddenly, Geoff looked straight at Wat, grinning. "This must be how Blod feels at Christmas," he said. "Baste one goose, stuff the other."

Wat snorted, cords of anxiety broken by the shake of his ribs. This was _Geoff_ , and that's what it was all about, really. Nothing else mattered.

It hurt when Geoff pushed in and Wat gritted his teeth, glad Geoff couldn't see his face—he'd stop for sure. But he was a determined bugger was Wat (buggeree, he reasoned), and he breathed slow and deep and shifted all his attention to the sensation that hid under the pain, a stretch and weight that he'd never felt before.

Slowly, slowly, Geoff began to move. Wat closed his eyes and clamped his lips tight over an unspoken whimper. Lights sparked behind his eyelids like fireworks and suddenly he knew. He knew he could accept the pain because it was an unshakeable shadow to everything that he wanted, that he had. This, too, would pass. He relaxed.

Then, without knowing how it happened, as the pain dulled there was a sudden burst of pleasure and Wat found himself pushing back against Geoff to feel it again. 

"God, Wat. This is…I…you are so. _Fuck_." 

It wasn't the first time Wat had broken Geoff's words. It never got old, though, and Wat's smile stretched wide as he said, "That's right, poet. Always so articulate." But the shocking pleasure shot through him once again and ripped away his complacency with one wordless cry. After that it was a short, inevitable climb to the edge and Wat clung on to the sheets for dear life as he fell helplessly over.

Wat hissed an inward breath as Geoff withdrew.

"Are you okay?"

"Might've ruined your pillow, I reckon."

"Never mind that." Geoff flopped down by Wat's side, close enough that Wat had to fight to focus. "Are you okay?"

Wat considered, very aware that his arse was still in the air, presenting itself like some bitch in heat. He was sore and sticky, but yeah, he was okay. He was more than okay.

"Think I might need to get back in that bath," he said.

Geoff glanced down his body and then back up at Wat. He bit his lip. "Me too."

Back in the bath, Wat squatted on his haunches, not quite ready to attempt sitting down.

"I may have to take issue with your assertion of okayness. Look at you."

Wat shook his head. "Nah, it's just precaution, innit? Like that time my mum tried to make us a curry and got teaspoons and tablespoons muddled up. Ring of fire or what? You just got to settle into it."

"Remind me to steer clear of your mother's cooking." Geoff looked down, absent-mindedly flicking at the water. "But seriously, Wat, was that…did you like it?"

Cautiously, Wat lowered himself until he was sitting. There was a twinge, but nothing he couldn't handle, didn't even wince. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I did. It hurt, mind you, still does obviously, but yeah. It felt like…I dunno. Like nothing else. Amazing."

Geoff's face lit up. "Truly?"

"No word of a lie." Wat felt the low down flutter of geese again, but he'd had time to get to know them and their ways and so he said, "Wanna do it again. If you do. If you want. On my back maybe, so's I can see you. Kind of missed your face before."

"I…Yes. I think that can be arranged." 

They grinned foolishly at each other, like some lucky idiots who'd just stumbled and fallen into a goldmine they'd never been looking for. Wat tried to move forward to get the kiss that waited for him, but another twinge stopped him in his tracks, the wince this time too fast to be caught.

"Maybe we'll pay more attention to the advice in future," said Geoff, reaching out a steadying arm. "It's not everyday Robert Redford provides personalised sex education so we really shouldn't waste it. Good thing you don't have to bike home today, isn't it?"

"Can't argue with that," said Wat, not thinking of his backside at all.

***


	8. Chapter 8

There was some part of Wat that thought if he hoped desperately and hard enough, time would still and they'd be trapped in a bubble forever, always summer. But soon enough they stopped making plans for next month, then next week and then, too soon, tomorrow. Wat sat on the floor, out of the way of Geoff's flurry of activity, back against the wall. A suitcase lay flung open across the bed, the level of clothes in in rising slowly as Geoff ummed and ahhed and changed his mind a million times. Too quickly still for Wat, though.

With Blod popping in and out with fortifying snacks and clean underwear, Wat was glad they'd had their chance for a proper goodbye the night before. Especially with what Geoff had handed over.

"Here," Geoff had said. "It's, ah, secondhand, and not exactly your standard parting gift, but I thought you might…be glad of it?"

Wat opened the bag and looked in to see a postcard resting on something pale pink and shiny. "Is that your mum's…?"

Geoff rubbed his neck and squinted. "Too on the nose?"

Wat's stomach knotted with a whole mess of emotions. He imagined Roland tutting at the impossibly tangled threads. "Nah. It's good. It's great."

He took out the postcard, the familiar red brick of Guildford cathedral on one side making Wat smile. He flipped it over. It read: We were together. I forget the rest. Walt Whitman. 

"And there I was thinking you was called Geoff," he said, proud of getting it out around the lump in his throat. He dropped the postcard back in the bag. "My turn."

He leaned down and scooped up his rucksack, pulling out a small, leather case. "Here. Roland made the case. I did the rest."

Geoff took the gift from him and unzipped it. Inside, Wat had assembled a bicycle repair kit complete with a small book of handwritten instructions. "Got diagrams and everything," Wat said. "I'm not great at drawing so it might get a bit confusing. Prob'ly best you don't fuck up your bike and then you won't have to worry."

"You made this for me?" Geoff sounded like he was having trouble talking, too.

"Yeah. Well, me and Roland, but yeah. Can't have you sodding off unprepared, like, can I?"

" _God_ , Wat," Geoff had said and gave up the fight.

The bike repair kit was now safely tucked into the side pocket of Geoff's suitcase wrapped in one of Geoff's feather boas. It was the first thing he'd packed and the only one he hadn't taken out numerous times. 

Geoff's dad's voice floated up the stairs. "Geoffrey, get a wriggle on. I'm going to have to be back by six for this dinner engagement and we'll be cutting it fine as is. Half an hour. Maximum." 

"Half an hour," muttered Geoffrey, looking down at his half empty suitcase and then at Wat, stricken. "Oh, my giddy aunt." Blood streamed from his nose and he cupped a hand under it, the quiet thud of drops changing too quickly into dull splashes. 

"Shit, Geoff!" Wat leapt to his feet and wrapped an arm around Geoff's shoulders, cupping his own hand under Geoff's, steadying it. He got Geoff moving forward, shuffling the two of them in an awkward two step to the bathroom and positioned him over the sink. Quickly, he spun the toilet roll and yanked off a long roll, wadding it up and sticking it under Geoff's nose.

"Hold that. No, not with that hand!" Wat tried to remember that nosebleeds always looked worse than they were, but there seemed to be an awful lot of Geoff's blood splashing from his hand into the sink. He got Geoff cleaned up and then directed him to sit on the toilet, squatting down in front of him.

"Right. You need to pinch your nose just above your nostrils. Can you do that?" 

Geoff did as he was told.

"And now lean forward a little bit."

Geoff did that, too.

"And now do a chicken impression."

Geoff's eyes narrowed and Wat only just avoided the incoming kick.

"Just checking you're still in there," he said. "Don't move. You can breathe, but don't move." He dashed out of the room and down the stairs, nearly colliding with Geoff's father in the hallway.

"Watch it, lad."

"Sorry, sir!" Wat skidded into the kitchen where Blod was packing food into a hamper. "Ice," he said. "Tea towel. Ice. Now."

"A please wouldn't go amiss," Blod grumbled. "What do you need ice for anyway?"

"Big nose bleed happening. Really big. So, please?" But Blod was already on top of the task and within seconds Wat was pounding back up the stairs, ignoring all the questions.

"Here." Wat resumed his position in front of Geoff. "This'll be cold, yeah? But it'll help. You ready?" He waited for Geoff's nod and then pressed the tea towel full of ice gently to the bridge of Geoff's nose. Geoff winced. "Told you."

"Is he all right?"

Wat turned his head to see Geoff's dad at the door. "Yeah. Prob'ly just stress or something. You know, big life changes and that. He'll be right by the time you need to leave, don't worry."

A flicker of something Wat couldn't read passed over Mr Chaucer's face. "I didn't mean...Geoffrey, I do know how daunting this is, but I know you'll be absolutely fine. I- Yes. Well. I shall be downstairs if you need anything."

Wat waited until he'd heard the man be as good as his word and then said, "You will be fine, you know. Better than. 'Cos you're Geoffrey Chaucer and you're clever as shit and Cambridge won't know what's hit it. Now stop bleeding, you nob." 

Ten minutes later, it seemed as if Geoff had obeyed. Wat took off the icepack and told Geoff to let go of his nose and move the tissue away. He watched carefully for a minute, but when there was no fresh blood flow he dropped the tea towel in the bath and nodded. "Looks good. Apart from that dried blood on your chin. Here." He was halfway to wetting his thumb and wiping it off himself when he remembered where they were and stopped dead. "Look in the mirror," he said, the recognition of the moment in Geoff's face forcing him to look away.

Geoff cleaned himself up. "How do you know so much about handling nosebleeds?"

Wat shrugged. "Used to deal with them a lot back in the day because, well, stuff. Haven't had one for a while, though." 

"Gone soft on me, Wat?" Geoff's reflection waggled its eyebrows at him.

"Not a chance, mate. Hard as nails, me, just you watch."

"Oh, I never needed convincing of that."

The tense misery balling under Wat's chest bone eased briefly as Wat worked out how he could one-up Geoff in the innuendo stakes. It snapped back into shape almost immediately as he realised that this time they weren't only playing for fun. 

Within the allotted half hour window the suitcase was finally packed, the car piled high with belongings and the Galaxy strapped to the roof. "Here, let me," Wat said, taking the elastic cables from Geoff's dad. He wasn't going to be responsible for that bike flying off due to crap tethering and physics or some other stuff Kate liked. He'd worked bloody hard on it, after all.

"So," said Geoff, leaning on the open car door. "I suppose it's time for the off, then."

"S'pose it is. Still dilly-dallying, are you? It's not like you'll be missed."

"Of course not. And think how quiet it'll be not to have you around."

"Yeah, shove off, posh boy." Wat cleared his throat. "Make us proud, right?"

"Will do. Keep a bar stool warm for me."

"Pisshead."

"Maniac."

"Get in the car."

"Absolutely. But first, I…er…" Geoff reached out a hand and Wat, wishing for nothing except to kiss his boyfriend goodbye one last time, took it and shook. Geoff pulled him a little closer and they hugged awkwardly, one arm round each other's shoulders, the width of the car door keeping them apart.

"Right then," said Geoff, voice audibly thick around the edges. "Onwards." He slipped from Wat's grasp and slid into the car. There was a sputter and then a roar as Geoff's dad gunned the engine.

Wat retreated to the steps next to Blod and together they waved the car down the drive. Geoff didn't look back.

"Well, it's quiet it'll be here now, isn't it? I bet that monster's left his room in a woeful state so that should keep me busy, right and tight."

Wat, staring at the place the car disappeared, blinked back into awareness. He had to get away from here. Now. 

"I'm gonna just…" He jerked his thumb towards his bike.

"Oh, no, don't you move a muscle, cariad. I won't be seeing so much of you now, will I, with the young one grown and flown? Wait there." Blod disappeared into the house reappearing seconds later with a bag in her hands. "I made you a tin of those scones you like so much and I've popped them in this carrier so you can hang them off your handlebars. Make it easy to get them home. You might even share some with your family, if you like?"

It was too much for Wat and he launched himself at her, wrapping her up in a tight hug.

"Oh…oh, all right, so?" Blod said, tentatively patting his back. "There, there, it's only scones. It's hard to see friends go, isn't it?"

Wat stopped himself from making a you-don't-know-the-half-of-it noise because he knew that he couldn't trust himself to open his mouth. Instead he peeled himself off Blod, nodded, took the carrier bag and left. He pedalled with determined speed, not allowing himself to think before he got to the cemetery where they'd celebrated their triumph over Adam Orr. It was easy to find a quiet space away from any prying eyes and Wat let the misery take over. He slid down to the ground, pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and broke the dam holding in the swell of desolation that had been building almost since they had begun. It poured out of him in ugly sobs and he punched the ground with powerless fists.

He'd always known they had a time limit, that it was going to get scary and hard and real, but it had already been those things and he'd thought he was prepared. But he wasn't. He wasn't ready at all for Geoff to be gone. And the more he thought about it the angrier he got. Who the fuck was Geoffrey Chaucer anyway, to come along and turn Wat's perfectly good life thank you upside down? Fuck him. _Fuck_ him.

Wat took a deep breath and stopped crying. He wiped a sleeve across his face, not caring about the mess. Yeah, fuck Geoffrey. Wat still knew how to have a good time without him and he was going to prove it.

***

"…and then she was running down the street, starkers, and me mum chasing after her with a towel and the tub of boracic acid flying every which way. She's got some speed on her for a five year old. Daft beggar." 

"Did she catch her?"

"Not until she'd run headlong into the vicar and told him the devil was in her skin and she wanted a word with Jesus. Mum was mortified."

Wat slammed his empty glass down, leaned back and laughed and laughed. 

"Whoa, there, champ," said Roland, grabbing his arm and balancing him. "It's not that funny."

Wat's laughter cut off sharply. "It is if she's not _your_ sister," he muttered. "'m getting a round in. Same again?"

"Not for me. I'm at risk of drowning if I take another sip. Get us a packet of salt and vinegar instead."

"Ma'am." Wat gave Kate a sloppy salute and turned to Roland. "You?"

Roland put a hand over the top of his glass. "Still got most of this one. I'd say slow down, but you'll not pay me any mind."

"One pint and a packet of crisps it is then," said Wat and staggered off towards the bar. They weren't drinking in The Phoenix, though, due to wanting to actually get served, and the different layout caused Wat's alcohol-saturated brain a moment's confusion. He swerved to avoid a glass pane he wasn't used to and collided with a man coming the other way, soaking both of them with irreparably spilled drinks. 

"Watch where you're going," he spat.

"Mate, accidents happen. A sorry will do." 

Wat looked at the man's broad, round-cheeked face and calm expression and immediately wanted to hit it. "Weren't _my_ accident. Got dinner plates for hands and you still can't hold on to a couple of drinks? You've got the problem, not me." He sneered, settling into a guarded stance, fingers squelching against his palms as he curled them in.

"You what?" The calm expression was shifting now and Wat knew he had him. There was only one way this was going to end and that was-

"What the fuck?" Wat stumbled as he was wrenched violently backwards, Kate stepping in between him and the man.

"I'm sorry for my friend, he's had an upset. Here, have this for your trouble. We'll take it from here."

Wat made a feeble attempt to get free from Roland's grasp, but Roland had a knack of making himself go heavy as a determined elephant. Wat knew from experience that there was no escape. Then Kate had his other arm, and between them they marched him from the pub. No sooner than they were outside then he was shoved down onto a bench, Roland pressed close on one side, still gripping his arm tight enough to hurt and Kate crouching down in front of him, one hand on his knee.

"Leave me alone," he growled. "Can fight my own battles."

Kate shook her head. "No. That wasn't a battle. That was an ambush. Making someone else hurt isn't going to stop you hurting, so don't be an idiot all your life, eh? The bruises you can see aren't the only kind."

"I just wanted to…" Wat tightened his still clenched fists.

"We know." Kate got up and sat on Wat's other side, taking his hand and uncurling his fingers, sliding her own between them. Roland relaxed his grip and did the same. "It's going to be tough, but you have us. I know it feels like you're all alone right now. You're not."

"Yeah, we've got your back, soft lad. Always."

Wat squeezed the two hands in his and tried not to think how different they were to Geoff's familiar shape. "I'm luckier'n I deserve, aren't I? Prob'ly I should shut up."

Kate bumped her head against his shoulder. "Normally I'd say yes and be grateful. But if it's a choice between picking you up from hospital or listening to your troubles, I'm going to go with getting my ear bent every time."

"Might invest in some earplugs, though," said Roland. "You know, just in case you drive me to me own rampage."

"Shut up, Roland," said Wat, punching Roland's thigh with their joined hands. For the first time that day, even through his drunken haze, it felt like Wat had seen the faintest thread of normal. Maybe if he grabbed it and held it really tight he would get through this after all.

***

The phone rang as the clock on the mantelpiece ticked over to a new hour, exactly at the time they had prearranged. Wat lunged out from where he'd been hovering and grabbed the receiver before the second shrill had time to die away.

"Hi," he said. "Wait."

"Did he just pop out of thin air, or what?" Wat's dad said, but Wat wasn't listening. With care he tugged at the phone line. It stretched just far enough to allow him to wedge himself into the corner of the kitchen, shoving the door closed as far as he could, wire scraping under the bottom of it.

"Okay."

"Is communication secure, Mr Bond? Are we good to go?"

"Shut it, you," said Wat and pressed the receiver close with both hands.

"Now you see I've missed your sweet nothings, Wat. You do know how to smooth talk a person."

It was like that last day all over again, wanting to say things he couldn't. "That's me. Always a charmer. What you been up to then?"

"It might be more cogent to ask what haven't I? Goodness, I can hardly believe it's only been a few days. Where to start, where to start?" 

Wat settled back into his corner and let Geoff's voice flow into him, like it could fill up the empty hole that he'd left. He talked about bikes (plentiful), the state of the beds (too small), how his old school pal Edward had already found himself a girlfriend (Joan) and how one day they'd probably rule the whole university between them, collegiate system be damned. Some of the things Geoff talked about Wat didn't really understand but he wouldn't ask for fear of sounding ignorant. He wasn't about to remind Geoff how he was just some pleb he'd left back at home where he belonged.

"And how about you?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Tell me what I'm missing, Wat. Tell me what's happening at home."

Nothing much without you, Wat wanted to say. But being pathetic wasn't what anybody wanted to hear, was it? "You'll never guess what Roland's kid sister did," he said instead, and launched into the story of chicken pox madness, Geoff's laughter like a warm blanket settling on his shoulders.

"I could tell you other stuff," he said after giving Geoff the Reader's Digest version of recent events. "But not here. It's tricky."

There was a brief silence at the end of the line. "I know. And I'm a selfish man, Wat Fowlehurst. I need to hear the, er, other stuff. Listen, what if instead of calling your house I call the phone box opposite your pub? Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. You'd have your own little bubble of privacy. Four glass walls, anyway. What do you say?"

"Yeah, sounds good. I wish I could-"

"I love you. I miss you. Does it work both ways?"

"'course!"

"Then I can wait until next week to hear you say it. Oh, lor!" The pips sounded loud and clear, an unwelcome cold shower on their conversation. "I'm all out of change, I'm afraid. We'll be cut off any second. Kiss me."

Wat snorted. "Don't be daft."

"Please."

Squeezing his eyes shut, Wat cupped a hand around the receiver and pressed his lips against the cold, hard plastic. "There," he said. "I hope-" The phone clicked and all he could hear was the buzz of a dead line. Wat replaced the receiver with deliberate care, stroking a fingertip along the length of it as if somehow the essence of Geoff was captured in the plastic and could respond to Wat's touch. It was stupid, he knew, but it was all he had. 

Wat shook his head. God, this was more than pathetic. The Wat of a year and a half ago would punch him in the face for being such a wet blanket. He couldn't live from phone call to phone call. What kind of a life would that be? The problem was nothing was the same since he'd met Geoff. Everything had changed, _he'd_ changed and even if he wanted to fit back into the same old patterns he'd got himself chucked into a whole new jigsaw box. And what were you supposed to do when one of the corner pieces was missing, anyway?

So he tried his best, pulled extra shifts, hung out with Kate and Roland, kicked a ball around with William, but seven days later still found him in the phone box ten minutes early, leg jiggling with nervous anticipation. The phone rang and Wat snatched it up, fumbling the receiver through his slippery hand. He could not have been less cool and he could not have cared less about it.

"Geoff?"

"Who else?"

Wat slumped against the wall, relief making him heavy. "Learn anything good this week? They teach you how to oppress the masses yet?"

"Oppression is second year syllabus, dearheart. But I am learning how to _suppress_ a particular mass, though." Wat could hear the leer in Geoff's voice.

"Dirty. What you want to go suppress it for? 's what nature gave you."

"You'd be surprised how inconvenient an instant erection can be in the middle of a tutorial on the political history of our great kingdom. I'm sure my tutor thinks I have inappropriate feelings for the Magna Carta. But I can't help it if thoughts of you appear unbidden when discussing the rowdy nobles."

"You're joking me."

"I am not. It turns out that it's awfully easy to link almost anything to you. Oh, Wat would have loved this. Ping! Oh, Wat would despise this. Ping! Oh, Wat would have punched this person's face so hard their own mother wouldn't recognise them. Ping! You see? I'm in constant peril of inadvertent public indecency. It's a minefield. Therefore, suppression."

"So you're trying not to think about me, then? Git."

"No. No, of course not. How's our favourite chicken pox patient this week? Terrified any more vicars?"

"Scabby. Roland thought he was getting it. On his dick. Made me look and everything. Turns out? I do not want to see his tackle. At all." Wat shuddered at the memory.

Geoff laughed. "I'm delighted to hear it. I reserve all tackle-related rights as far as you're concerned."

"You got 'em, trust me. Blimey."

There was silence for a moment and Wat closed his eyes and listened to Geoff breathe. If he ignored the crackle of the phone line and the cool glass at his back he could almost imagine that they were back in Geoff's bed, settling down to sleep at the end of a long day.

"I joined an interesting-"

"I love you," Wat blurted out, the words desperate to escape after being kept locked up for the last two weeks. There was no suppressing that, apparently. "God, Geoff, I miss you all the time. This is shit."

"Wat. Wat. I know. I know. And I know I'm supposed to put words round it to make it better for us, but I can't. I'm sorry. I'll be with you as soon as I can, trust me."

"Yeah, I know you will. I'm sorry, too. You don't need me being a miserable git on you when you've got all your brainy stuff to do."

"Don't apologise. I don't wish suffering on you, of course I don't, but it does my heart good to know that I'm not alone in this."

Wat bridled. "How could you ever be?" He shook his head, relaxing again. "We always went about this the hard way," he said. "Took us long enough to find our way round to each other in the first place, didn't it? That was hard, that. Maybe we've just forgotten how much. Least this time we know where we stand."

"When did you get so wise? I don't remember giving permission for that."

"Keep my bushel hidden, don't I? Keep expectations low, that way you only have to shift yourself when you're actually bothered."

Geoff laughed again. "I love you, you idiot."

"Give with one hand, take with the other; that's you."

"I know what I can give you with my hand."

"And we're back to the dirty, I see. One track mind, Geoffrey Chaucer."

By the time he hung up, Wat was grinning and ready to go and grab whatever the world was handing to him. On their own, away from anyone else, it was still the two of them. Still Wat and Geoff with their stupid jokes and arguments about what constituted good music and ridiculous need to bone each other. So they had to wait for that last one, what were they, men or mice? Rabbits, maybe. Men or rabbits? Seven days until Wat could work on subverting Geoff's suppression system and then in a couple of months they would reunite. They would reunite _so hard_. He could do this thing. They could do this thing. It was going to be all right.

When the phone call was late for the first time, Wat nearly didn't realise, he was so used to turning up early and glaring all comers away from the phone box. But when he saw Mrs Khan walking down the road laden with shopping she hadn't had when he'd seen her go the other way earlier, he checked his watch. It was getting on for half past. He frowned. Geoff had been bang on time, mostly. Immediately Wat's head was filled with doom-laden scenarios that ran the gamut of possibility from out of order phone booths through falling down the stairs and out the other side of alien abduction. He glared at the phone as if he could will the call into existence.

"You gonna be long, mate? Only I got to put a call into my bookie. Time sensitive, yeah?"

"Fuck off," snarled Wat, flicking the guy shouting through the glass the Vs without taking his eyes off the phone.

He was rewarded when it burst into piercing life. Be cool, he told himself. Be cool.

Be cool turned out to be letting it get to the third ring. Yeah, he was smooth as fuck.

"All right?"

"Aren't you going to ask me what time you call this?"

"You're at an elite institution, innit? Pretty sure you can tell the time all by yourself."

"Are you angry with me, Wat? You have every right to be, I'm sorry. I was at a meeting and it-"

"Didn't ask, did I? Shit's going to happen, 'cos that's what shit does. It's not like you've gone and spoiled my plans to party with the Sabbath, is it? Got nothing can't be shifted a few minutes for you."

"So you're not pissed off?"

"No."

"Truly?"

"I'm gonna be if you don't shut up about it. Stop wasting time we ain't got."

"Absolutely. Of course you're right. I apologise. Again."

Wat rolled his eyes and changed the subject. The rest of the conversation was their usual mix of news exchanging, flirting innuendo and the occasional heartfelt moment, but when he hung up he felt somehow dissatisfied. It had been a few weeks now. Maybe it was as simple as them both really needing to get laid, but maybe it was something else. Something he couldn't put a finger on. Wat rubbed at his scalp, trying to shift the strange shivering sensation that crawled across it, and jogged across the road to start his shift.

Two weeks later and two weeks colder, Wat was less ready to be patient with waiting. The minutes ticked by as he jigged up and down the spot, hands shoved under his armpits to keep them warm. At quarter past he was mildly irritated, at half past concern set in. That took him to about quarter to by which time he'd flown past irritation to full on cursing rage. Kicking the wall did nothing to improve his mood, however, and by the time the hour rolled around Wat had to admit defeat and headed home, confused and disappointed.

Did he have the time wrong? Did Geoff? It was the right day, wasn't it? Why would Geoff not call? Wat froze on his doorstep. Unable to decide if he was supposed to be concerned for his boyfriend's health and well-being or furious at his unannounced no show his body ground to a halt in sympathy. 

The door was wrenched out of his hand. "Get in the house, you muppet. You'll get frostbite standing out there and I'm not spoon feeding you if all your fingers fall off."

Wat blinked himself aware. "Sorry, mum, I was just…" He shrugged.

"Just dawdling and letting all the heat out, I know. Get in!" She reached out and grabbed him by the ear, tugging him through the door. 

He let himself be chivvied into a chair at the kitchen table, fingers too numb to unzip his parka. Wat's mum's eyebrows knitted as she searched his face, the furrow between them as familiar to Wat as breathing.

"I'm making tea and you're drinking it," she said. "And I'm presuming if I ask what's bothering you, you'll feed me a line so I won't waste the words. You haven't been yourself for a while, have you, son? You might feel better spitting it out, whatever it is."

Wat concentrated on his zip so he wouldn't have to meet her eyes.

"Well," she said, after a few seconds of silence, "that's all I'm going to say about that one. I'll put the chops on."

In the time it took for the chops to be cooked to his mum's idea of perfection, Wat was warmed through by the cup of tea and had managed to get his coat off and to rationalise away his worst fears. Blod knew that they were mates—best mates as far as she was concerned—and she'd find a way of letting him know if anything terrible had happened to Geoff. Of course she would. So that dealt with the fear and left the fury. Wat managed to choke down his dinner so as not to alarm his mum any further, but the second he could escape he was away and up the stairs to his bedroom, the thrashing of guitars thumping like his heart as he scrawled on a notepad, "where the fuck were you?" in black, heavy letters over and over again. He tore the page out, ripping it into smaller and smaller pieces, crushing them into a ball in his hands. He threw it towards the bin but it fell apart, tiny fragments of paper falling like snow across his room. 

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake!" he yelled at the debris. "For fuck's _sake_!" The anger swelled in him, white hot and dangerous. It had been a long time since Wat had felt rage with such a deadly focus. It crushed his throat and buzzed in his ears and his instinct was to lash out, to destroy, but what? He found himself with one of Geoff's postcards in his hand, ready to tear it into shreds to match the paper on the floor and suddenly he stopped. No. _No_. He wasn't that person now; he didn't want to be. No more destroying first and regretting after the fact. There was always a better way. Geoff had helped him see that. He had ears for listening and a tongue for talking and rage never got John to come back, so why would it work on Geoff?

He'd wait and see. Molehills were molehills, after all.

The letter came by second post next day. It said:

Wat,

Dear Wat. I am an abject fool and I humbly supplicate myself at your feet. Of all things I was at a International Socialists' meeting (to oppress the masses, first know your enemy. I kid, of course) and entirely forgot the time. Polemic can do that to a person, it would seem.

I am most awfully sorry and I promise to keep to time next week. Please don't hate me. Castigate me for an oathbreaker and chew my ear off for it as you will, but don't hate me.  
I am, as ever,

Your Geoffrey

Wat read the letter three times and then folded it up carefully, slipping it between John's old comics still stacked on Wat's shelf. International Socialists' meeting? That was so bizarre that it couldn't be anything but the truth. Maybe this was Geoff's peculiar way of staying close to him? Wat certainly wouldn't put it past him to think it was a good idea.

"Daft beggar," he said, and smiled.

Geoff called to the second the following week. Wat let it ring for longer than usual before answering.

"Are you punishing me, Wat?"

"Might be."

"You should."

"Yeah."

"I _am_ sorry. Please tell me you didn't wait too long in the cold. I really don't want to be the cause of bits of you dropping off."

"Not gonna drop off from _cold_ ," Wat said on autopilot.

"Should I be sorry about that, too?"

"Yeah, why not?"

The conversation lapsed. It seemed to Wat that this time it wasn't that there were things he couldn't say, but things he didn't know _how_ to. Things he couldn't even articulate to himself.

"International Socialists, eh?" he managed just before the silence stretched itself to brittle awkwardness.

"I'm broadening my horizons. You should be proud."

"Didn't know they let posh folk in. You practising dropping your aitches, like?"

"In 'ereford, 'ertford and 'ampshire, 'urricanes 'ardly 'appen."

Wat pulled a face. "Got a way to go there, mate. Keep working on it for the glory of the cause and that."

"Oh, I shall."

"Treat you all right, though, do they? Or is it all rich kids playing at politics?"

"They do and it's not. They're…it's fine. It's interesting. Anyway, enough about me."

Wat racked his brains for something to tell Geoff, but truth be told he'd slept-walked through most of the week, waiting for the next phone call, just like he'd promised himself he wouldn't. 

"My uncle's talking about micro-breweries," he said. "He says all the beer is shit and piss and he doesn't know why people keep coming back for it. My auntie says because it does the job. She's got a point. But he says I can help test once I turn eighteen and would I ever turn down free booze? I don't think so."

"You'd be a fool if you did." Geoff paused. "Listen, Wat. It's pretty chilly out so I should let you get into the warm."

"Nah, it's all right. I'm-"

"I have to go anyway. Next week, yeah? Love you."

"Yeah, sure. I-" But the line went dead before he could finish his reply. He didn't even wait for the pips, Wat thought. Two weeks since they'd spoken and he didn't even wait for the pips. A cold lump settled in Wat's stomach. He's probably just busy, Wat told it. All that learning to do, it takes time.

A few days later another letter arrived. Geoff wrote that he had exams and no time to spare ("See?" Wat told himself) and that Wat shouldn't go to the phone box and wait. I'll write to you and let you know when I'll call, the letter said. Wish me luck.

***

But no letter came and as much as Wat tried to tell himself that everything was still okay he knew that it wasn't. He had Geoff's address, could've picked up a pen himself, but something held him back. What if his letter was unwelcome? He had nightmares of Geoff opening it in front of his new posh friends and laughing with them over Wat's sometimes-shaky grasp on the written word. Even worse, laughing at Wat's attempts to scrape the feelings out of his insides and set them down on paper. He couldn't do it. Besides, Geoff would be home for the holidays soon enough and everything would be all right if they could just see each other face to face. The summerhouse would be too cold this time of year for what they needed. Probably good for splinter reasons, but not so great for privacy. Surely they could find some space somewhere to be alone and then Geoff would remember what he was missing and everything would be normal again. Wouldn't it? 

Wat told himself that nerves were what were to be expected as he rode towards Geoff's house the day he was due home. Maybe he should've played it cool, left it until the day after, but there was a real possibility his guts would've twisted so much by then they'd've upped and strangled him in his sleep. The house, once so intimidating, greeted Wat like a familiar friend as he swept into the drive, abandoning his bike against its wall. In his anxious state he'd forgotten to put gloves on and so it was with half-numb fingers that he knocked on the door. It seemed to Wat the longest minute of his life before it was opened. 

"Yes?" said Fisher, Mr Chaucer's secretary, infusing a world of disdain into the single word. Though Wat and he had crossed paths rarely, Fisher had made no secret of his disapproval at Geoff's choice of friend. Wat, for his part, had made no secret that he thought Fisher looked like he'd been slapped with one cold halibut and had another shoved up his arse. Still, Wat wasn't going to let their mutual animosity get in the way of his mission.

"Is Geoff back?"

Fisher's lips moved in what might be, under a microscope, mistaken for a smile. It was not a pleasant sight. "The young master is holidaying with friends. He won't be returning for Christmas. I do believe we will see him a day or so before the new term starts. Someone must do his laundry, after all."

And just like that, Wat understood all the ridiculous clichés of heartbreak: the winding gut punch, the chest ripped wide open, heart crushed, his world leeching away through the soles of his feet. He wanted to stagger under the weight of it, the knowledge that he'd been fooling himself, guilty of selling hope a home without foundations, but there was a part of him, the chippy, stubborn, working class _bastard_ , that refused to give Fisher the satisfaction of watching him suffer. He lifted his chin.

"Oh, right. Good for him, then. Can I leave a note just so he knows I've been round?"

Fisher's nostrils flared. "I'm not sure that's approp-"

"Oh, take the stick out of your bum, you," said a voice behind Fisher. "Hello, pet. I'm sorry Geoff won't be about. I miss him, too. Who's going to eat all my gingerbread men now? You go up and write your note, won't you?"

"Thanks, Blod," said Wat, touching her arm briefly as he edged past Fisher into the house. He ran up the stairs two at a time, shutting Geoff's bedroom door behind him.

The day was already fading and Wat's finger hovered over the light switch unwilling to lift the gloom and face more evidence that Geoff was gone in the accusing gaps on the walls and in the bookcases. 

He wasn't coming back.

Wat clenched his jaw and flicked the switch. Without even knowing what he was doing he found himself at Geoff's desk, flicking through the drawers to dig out paper and a dog-eared envelope. The pen felt like nothing through his still numb fingers. He put it to the paper and stalled. Maybe everything was frozen forever. Maybe it was for the best.

He wasn't coming back. Why wasn't he coming back?

The burning anger started low in Wat's chest, pouring like molten lava through his body, pushing out the cold and pounding through his skull, galvanizing him to write. He wrote: I hate you. How could you? You promised. You PROMISED. He stopped, stared at the words until they blurred in front of his eyes and swore, ripping out the paper and stuffing it, crumpled, into his pocket. He tried again:

Geoff,

It would've been nice if you'd told me your plans. Probably you're too grand for this place now. Too grand for me, seems like. Not like it weren't expected so don't feel guilty or nothing. Fun while it lasted and that.

Have a good life, yeah?

Wat

He looked at the new version and nodded. There. He wasn't going to give the wanker the satisfaction of knowing how bad this hurt. No, not even if he lived a million years. He folded the paper and sealed it in the envelope, addressing it with a simple 'G' and leaving it on the desk for Geoff to find should he ever be bothered to turn up home. Part of Wat wanted to stay, to huddle in a corner surrounded by Geoff's things and so many good memories. Rip off the plaster, he told himself. You have to rip it off, now.

He took the stairs two at a time, almost missing his step as the ghost of an implacable Geoff barring his exit before they were even friends wavered in front of him.

"Wat," said Blod out of the corner of his eye, but he belted past her and onto his bike, hairs stretched to unbearable tension as the plaster came off. Red raw, he rode away from the house, the cold air blurring his vision. At least, that's what he let himself believe.

A few minutes later he was standing at another door.

"What's happened?" asked Kate, pulling him inside. "You look terrible."

Wat's throat was too tight to manage more than a single word. "Geoff."

Kate's eyes widened. "Is he hurt? Is he okay? What happened?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Wat bit out and then shook his head, immediately ashamed. "I'm sorry, Kate. I didn't mean…Oh, shit. Oh, _shit_." And, though he hated himself for it, he started to cry.

"Oh," said Kate. "Oh no. _Wat_. I'll murder him, I swear."

Wat could only shake his head and surrender to her fierce hug. It was as if her tight grip made it safe for him to come apart because she could keep all the pieces together. He said, "Why doesn't he want me? Aren't I good enough for him?" and it was like another punch to the heart. His legs shook.

"Come on." Kate loosened her grip, but kept one arm wrapped round his waist. "Come up to my room. We'll get you all comfy and you can talk as much as you'd like."

He let himself be led up the stairs and settled on her bed. She handed him a tissue and he blew his nose automatically, the noise comically loud in the quiet room. He was never one to go for subtle, Wat thought. Maybe that was part of the problem. 

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Kate sat on the bed next to him. "You don't have to if you'd rather not."

"We're finished, me and him," said Wat, angry with himself at the way his voice broke mid-sentence. He clenched his fists and tried again. "We broke up."

"I'm so sorry, Wat."

"Don't be. You weren't the arsehole."

"So Geoff…?"

Wat told Kate everything that had happened over the past few weeks: the missed calls, the non-existent letter, the casual way Geoff just didn't come home. Every word was like choking on needles, but when he'd finished something inside him felt soothed, like vomiting after you'd eaten something bad. 

"How could he, Kate? If he loved me like he said, how could he do that?"

Kate laid a hand on his arm. "He did love you. Don't doubt that, at least. I saw it and I know it was real. I don't know what happened to make him stop. I wish I could tell you so that you didn't have to go through all of this, but I can't. I'll kill him for you, if you like. Or, you know, just be very, very mean. I've honed my skills on Roger Fairbairn, you know."

Wat managed a weak smile. "I can't believe it. The love thing. I can't make it make sense."

"Love seldom does. Look, I understand, and I'll keep believing for you until you're ready to believe it yourself. You are very lovable, Wat Fowlehurst, and don't you go forgetting it."

Wat keeled over, laying his head in Kate's lap. "Why can't I marry you, Kate?" he asked.

"Because if I ever get married, I'd like it to be to someone who actually wants to shag me, thank you very much."

"Heh, good point." And it was, but it was comfortable here, Kate's cool hand stroking through his hair, and, not for the first time, Wat desperately wished his heart (and his dick) would fall in line with the rest of the world instead of going its own sweet way. God, this was it, wasn't it? It had been hard enough to fall in love in the first place, how could he ever go through that again? At least he knew what floated his boat these days, but the whole delicate is-he-or-isn't-he dance routine and the hiding and the subterfuge? All to just be let down in the end? To be abandoned? Why would he ever do that to himself?

And how would anyone else live up to Geoff's memory anyway? He should hate him, he _did_ hate him, but only because he'd loved him so much. Wat pulled his knees up to his chest against the sudden sharp pain in it, breath catching in his throat.

"Oh fuck, this hurts." He grabbed for Kate's hand and squeezed it. "It's never going to stop, is it?"

"You know," said Kate after a moment's silence. "I could offer you lots of platitudes about broken hearts mending, but let's face it, that's all crap. This is shitty. You loved him and he's gone and you can't do anything about it and that's about as bad as it gets. So cry and scream and punch things—but try not to let those things be people, hey?—and fuck anyone who says you should get a grip. You'll be ready when you're ready."

"Yeah, never," said Wat and shifted onto his back. "Fuck this," he said, hitting his chest to let the ball of misery lodged under his ribs know who exactly was the boss here. "Tell me what's up with you."

***


	9. Chapter 9

The next few weeks were a forgettable blur. Wat wrapped the pain round him like Roland had cut it perfectly to fit. He dragged himself from bed to work and back again and tested the limits of his parents' patience with refusals to "Turn it down, this is the last time, I'm warning you!" Every spare moment his head was crowded with what if and why not and bruised memories that ached every time he so much as looked at them.

And then Auntie June cornered him in the beer cellar, clipped his ear and said, "That's enough now, Wat. Snap to."

"But…"

"I love you, kid, but your problems aren't bigger than everyone else's here. Sort it out or bugger off. Your choice." She hugged him and kissed the ear she'd smacked. "Now get those pipes cleaned."

Wat knew she was right. Here he was, hoping for the thick, boring fog of unhappiness to lift on its own and that wasn't ever going to happen, was it? He had to blow it away himself, starting now. He wasn't dead, was he? He had good mates, a job and a roof over his head so he was doing better than a lot of folk. There was no such thing as perfect, was there? And he'd learned stuff from Geoff. Difficult stuff, even. Stuff he'd often wished he could shove back in the uncorked bottle, but not now. Leastways, not most of the time. So if that was all they'd ever been meant to be, a way of bringing Wat to himself, then maybe that was okay. 

Wat's heart pinched at that, and he knew that he was still fooling himself. It was a start, though, and that was what mattered.

By summer, if anyone had asked, Wat would have said that all was on the up in his world. He'd hit eighteen, which meant finally getting officially employed at The Phoenix, serving behind the bar and being taught the ropes by his uncle and aunt. He was considering a college catering course as part of his attempt to get them to trial serving food. He'd even started cleaning his fingernails on the regular. Most of the rest of the time he spent giving Roland shit about his ongoing relationship dance with Christina and helping Kate revise for her exams. He'd balked at that at first.

"How'm I gonna be any use? If it's not making change or things going up falling back down, I ain't got no use for maths or physics."

"Because if I can explain it to you in words you can understand, my unenlightened pal, then I have got it _down_."

Wat considered. "Makes sense. So that bloke with the apples, then?"

So it was with his pre-breakup swagger that he walked through the High Street, wages in his back pocket itching to be swapped for new vinyl. Crowds were pouring out of the pictures after some matinee or other. Wat glanced across the street to see what was on and froze on the spot.

There was Geoff. His hair was longer, but other than that he was exactly the same as Wat had last seen him months ago. Without thought, Wat opened his mouth to call to him, but the words vanished, half-formed, as he realised Geoff wasn't alone. A boy about their age, hair suggesting some kind of Iggy Pop fixation, linked his arms through Geoff's. Geoff turned to him, smiling, and they walked off down the street, so absorbed in chattering to each other that they seemed to have no idea that the rest of the world was there, let alone Wat. Wat watched Geoff gesticulate and didn't have to hear what they were saying to know that he'd hated whatever film it was he'd just watched. It was the way his hand cut the air. Liking things had a whole different set of gestures.

God. It was like losing him all over again. Here he was, home, and he'd made no attempt to get in touch. Weren't they friends first? What the hell had happened? How could Geoff have left him so completely?

"Hey. Do you need the whole street or…"

Wat whirled round and it was by a miracle that he didn't swing for the person behind him. He shoved his hands in his pockets and swallowed.

"Sorry. Yeah," he said, and stepped aside. 

Without any memory of getting there, Wat found himself back home, the ache setting in his clenched jaw echoing the old, familiar pain wedged below his breastbone.

"What, no records?" his mum said. "Well, that's a relief for me and your dad."

"Yeah." Wat tried to edge past her and up the stairs, but before he'd even got a foot on the tread his dad spoke from the depths of his armchair.

"The wrestling's on. They've got Big Daddy coming up next. If you're interested."

He wasn't. Not really. But he slumped down on the settee anyway. What else was there to do? Besides, if he couldn't punch the fuck out of some poor bastard could be he'd get something out of watching a fat bloke in a white leotard sit on someone's head. 

On the screen, the blond haired, glammed-up Adrian Street was being bounced off the ropes and onto the ground by someone Wat didn't recognise. Street wriggled under the guy who was straddling him with solid thighs. As he leaned forward to grab Street's arms to pin him, Street lifted up his head and planted a kiss full on the wrestler's lips. A second later he was on his feet and dancing round the ring, his opponent backed into a corner theatrically taking water and spitting it out.

"Dirty trick, that. Bloody poofter."

Wat was too tense for his stomach to even curl at that. 

"I like him," his mum said, coming to perch on the settee's arm. "He's wily and his makeup is pretty."

Wat's dad snorted.

"He reminds me a bit of your friend, you know, Wat? We haven't seen Geoff about in a long time. How's he getting on?"

Wat's fists tightened and he managed to unclench his jaw enough to say, "Don't know. Don't care."

There was another snort. "Did you really expect to stay mates with a posho? They're all the same. I told you."

"No you never!" Wat was on his feet now. "What's wrong with me that you reckon I can't have a friend like Geoff? What's wrong with wanting my world to be a bit bigger than your shitty life?" He lifted his chin. "Might not have been forever, but I learned more from him than I done from you my whole life."

Wat's dad snorted a third time, knuckles white on the arms of his chair. "Sweet on him, were you? Must be if you're daring to talk to me like that, you little shit."

Wat froze, his throat closing. This was all a huge mistake. He should apologise, walk it all back, retreat to his room and be the good son he was supposed to be. His shoulders slumped and he opened his mouth to say sorry. The words wouldn't come. They wouldn't come and he started to shake, the geese in his guts beating their wings as if fighting against an oncoming storm.

Fuck it, he thought. Fuck everything.

"You know what?" he said. "I was. Might still be. Sweet on him, that is, because here's the thing, _Dad_. I'm exactly what that Adrian Street pretends to be. I'm the real deal. I'm a poofter, a queer, whatever you want to call me. I like boys and I like being _fucked_. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it." 

" _Wat_!" exclaimed his mum.

"What did you say?" 

"You heard me."

"Don't you talk to me like-"

"Wat, love, this isn't funny," his mum cut in.

Wat's laugh held no humour at all. "Tell me about it," he said. "No fun seeing the bloke who broke your heart with some other fella. I hope they both choke." He'd've added 'on each other's dick', but his dad was near enough apoplexy already judging by the colour on him. Burn this shit down, Wat thought, gleeful. Burn it all the fuck down. He shoved his hands in his pockets and lifted his chin. 

His dad half rose from his chair, colour bled from his thinly stretched lips. "Get. Out," he said, low and threatening. Wat took a step back. "Get out of this house and don't come back, you pervert. You're no child of mine. Get out!" With his final shout he lunged forwards. Wat didn't need telling again. He sprinted from the house grabbing his bike as he went, barely noting the stricken look on his mother's face as he ran past her.

For the first thirty seconds or so, Wat was so numb that all he could do was keep his legs turning, but then it hit him, that everything was completely fucked up and yet for the first time in as long as he could remember he was completely free. He started to laugh and couldn't stop. Let it go, he told himself. Let it all go. All the fear and secrecy and lies. All the hiding—from himself, from everybody. He lifted his face to the warm breeze and let out a yell from as deep inside as he could reach. So nothing could ever be the same again? Good.

Good. 

He made a beeline for Roland. After all, he'd helped Wat work out how he was put together in the first place and he'd not laughed nor thrown him out nor told him he was made wrong. Wat couldn't expect him to glue his broken family back together, no matter how nimble his fingers, but maybe he could help sort the messed up drawers in Wat's head.

"You _told_ them?"

Roland's sister's swing set creaked as Wat pushed himself back and forth, toes rocking on the ground. 

"Yeah." He squinted up at Roland who lounged against a post. "Bad move, you reckon?"

"Depends. What happened next?"

"Got chucked out, didn't I? Dad called me a pervert. Said I weren't his kid any more."

"Blimey, Wat. That's harsh."

"Always knew it would be. That's why I never thought I'd say."

"Why did you?"

Wat stopped swinging. He looked into the open drawers, odds and sods all thrown in haphazard and reached in to tidy up. "Because I was tired," he said. "Because I don't get Geoff but that don't mean I never get anyone I want again. I'm eighteen, not eighty, aren't I? I liked it, what I did with Geoff. I'm not so stupid to think I can't like it with someone else, too. I want to want it one day, you know? And I don't want to hide it away if I do. I'm not ashamed of who I am, Roland. Of being, you know…gay. Not any more." He shrugged. "I'm trying not to be, anyway. I don't know how to explain it to you. I just want to be all of me, that's it." The drawer slid closed without him even noticing.

"I love you, you daft get." Roland reached out and kicked Wat's ankle. 

"I'm pretty lovable," Wat agreed. "Kate said."

"What are you going to do, though? You can kip on my floor if you'd like. My mum won't mind. She likes you."

"She wouldn't if she knew, probably."

Roland shook his head. "I don't think she'd care. It's not her grandkids you're murdering, is it?"

"Roland!"

"I'm only saying what your parents are thinking. The only thing I care about you pantswise is that you never show me what's in them."

"Bet you don't say that to Christina."

"Bet you're right." Roland had the good grace to blush. "So what do you think about my floor?"

"Honestly? I'm so grateful for the offer, you don't know. And for you being my mate and I know I never say that, so…" Wat nodded firmly. "You're my best friend. But you got a whole life going on, right? You got your apprenticeship and your girl and you can't be coming home to me taking up all your floor space. And anyway, you'd kill me the first time you came home and there were no biscuits in the tin."

"You do make a good point. Well then, what?"

Wat drew in a deep breath and sorted through another drawer. "I think I'm going to have a chat with my auntie," he said. "Might need to see exactly how much family I've got left."

"Do you want me to come with you? Moral support?"

For a brief moment, Wat nearly agreed, as if clutching Roland to him like some kind of security blanket would actually work. But he shook his head. "This is my thing. Thanks, though. For everything."

"Floor's always here if you need it," said Roland. "Me, too."

Wat's stomach began to ache even before the pub came into view. It was evening by now, the trestles outside the pub full, clouds of tobacco smoke hanging over animated conversations and loud laughter. He wheeled his bike into the alley as if this were a normal shift on a normal day and went in through the back door. 

"Didn't think you were on today," said Tanya, one of the barmaids, carrying through a crate of empties.

"'m not." Wat shoved his hands in his pockets. "Where's She?"

"Our queen and empress is upstairs with the books. You gonna give me a hand or what?"

"What," said Wat. "Time sensitive, this. Maybe later."

"That's what they all say," said Tanya, rolling her hips and walking off.

Wat took the stairs two at a time. The phone started ringing as he reached the top. He sprinted straight through the lounge and grabbed it, hanging up immediately.

"No, no," said Auntie June. "As a publican I loathe and detest speaking to people. So glad you took the issue out of my hands."

Wat turned round to see her looking up at him over the rims of her glasses. She only wore them for reading and close work and Wat thought perhaps she reckoned she looked all intellectual and stern in them, but to him they softened her somehow. Like even his take-no-bullshit auntie needed help sometimes.

"Sorry. It might have been…" He shook his head and went to sit beside her. "This is turning out to be a bit of a day. Can I talk to you?"

"Always, love." She took off her glasses and folded them neatly on top of the opened books.

Wat sighed. "Dad's kicked me out."

She laughed. "Again? What did you do this time? Put salt in his tea? Scratch his favourite record?"

"It's serious."

"Oh. Oh, I see." She shifted the glasses minutely, lining them up in perfect parallel with the edge of the paper. "There's nothing you can tell me that will make me stop loving you, nephew mine, believe you me. Nothing."

Wat bit his lip, fighting the urge to cry. He dug his blunt nails into his leg and said as simply as he knew how, "I'm gay." He tried not to look at her, not to see the disappointment on her face as she failed her best efforts to hold to her promise. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway because there was no seeing a face that was pressed into the side of his, no wondering against the arms that wrapped around his back.

"It's okay," she said. "My poor boy. My lovely, wonderful boy. It's okay." Eventually she let him go and shook him by the shoulders. "I will end your father," she said. "See if I don't."

And Wat didn't know what he'd been expecting, only not this, and it took all his willpower to fight back the prickling tears of relief.

"You…you don't mind?"

"There's nothing to mind. You are who you are and that's all there is to it. Look, I've…Do you want to hear a story?"

"Sure."

"Settle down then." She grinned at him and he felt something unwind. "So I'm an old bird. What's that? I can't be more than twenty-one if I'm a day? Well, thank you for that compliment you never uttered, you brat." She smoothed down her hair. "Where was I?"

"Being old."

"Cheeky. It seems a long time ago now, but we had a war once. I was just a slip of a lass, mind, too young to be signed up. We were all expected to be part of the War Effort, though, and we wanted to be. So I'd go out with a group of us neighbourhood kids with a handcart and some shovels and we'd dig through the rubble until we'd salvaged what we could. That's where I met her. Maryam. Big brown eyes and dark hair in thick plaits right down to her waist, she had, and, oh, such red lips like I'd never seen. I think I fell in love right there. We didn't know what we were about, not really. Just a close pair of friends who'd cuddle a bit and kiss sometimes because that's what you did when you were the best of friends, wasn't it? It never once felt wrong, Wat. Touching her, laughing with her, being with her. Never once."

Wat gaped. "What happened?"

"The V2s. She didn't even hear it coming. None of them did. And it sounds silly and sentimental, but I swear part of me died with her that day. Now I'm not saying I don't love your uncle, because I do, God help me I'll never know why, but Maryam…I still think about her. If those bloody Germans hadn't stolen her from me maybe we'd be still together today. Who's to know?" She sighed and Wat watched as her eyes misted and then cleared again, sharpening their focus on him. "It's a tough row, though, Wat, the one you're hoeing."

"D'you…Because you liked Maryam and Uncle David. Do you think I should like both, too?"

"You like who you like, sweetheart, and that's that. No point trying to be the peg that fits into all the holes."

"Yeah, okay. That's…thanks."

"As for your father kicking you out, you can live here. We've got that spare room. Shouldn't be a bother finding somewhere else for those bloody boxes. I've been on at your uncle for years about them anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"Am I ever anything else?"

Wat found himself smiling. "No," he said. "Shall we get started?"

Later, Wat lay in bed, dressed only in his underpants, his clothes and other belongings a problem for tomorrow. He stared out of the uncurtained window at the sliver of moon that rose above the rooftops and thought about how it turned about, every month bringing it back to the same place again. And here he was, in the same room he'd first screwed up the courage to tell Geoff how he felt. Those feelings had become knowledge and that knowledge more feelings and here he was, all tangled up in all of that and right back where he started even though so many more miles down the road. Geoff would say it was poetic. Wat thought probably it was the world thinking it was in on a great joke.

He pressed his hand to his chest, expecting to feel the old ache there, so close to the echoes of his outburst, of their first real kiss, but there was nothing. For all this day's work, the possibility he'd been orphaned by choice, the dragging of his secret out into the light before he'd even known he was ready, Wat could only be surprised at the soft calm that weighed his limbs with the beginnings of sleep. It was a kind of happiness that he hadn't felt in a very long time.

***

And so life went on. Uncle David went out the next morning and came back with bags and boxes full of Wat's things. He didn't quite look Wat in the eye and Wat couldn't help but wonder if his auntie had twisted his uncle's arm so tight he'd had to agree to the move, like it or not. But then he said, "We're not…Sorry about your dad, lad. We're not all stuck in the Dark Ages," and Wat realised he was ashamed of his brother-in-law. 

"Did he say anything?" Wat kicked himself for asking the second the words were out.

Uncle David cast him a quick glance. "No," he said, too quickly, and Wat knew he was lying.

"What about my mum?" Glutton for punishment, he must be.

"Ah, now, she said to make sure you bathed regular. And not to forget the bits you can't see."

Wat grinned at that. He'd been shit hot at the whole personal hygiene for a couple of years now, but she was never going to let him live down the incident with the fungus. And as long as she didn't, Wat knew she still loved him. He'd bloody bath every day if he thought she'd know about it.

It was strange how little life seemed to change now he was living in the pub. His uncle didn't like the wrestling and his auntie more often than not answered the question, "What's for dinner?" with, "Whatever you're cooking, kiddo," and he missed the cat, but mostly it was business as usual. At least, that's what he thought until one day, after Wat had been in his new home for a couple of weeks, Auntie June knocked on his bedroom door and said,

"Wat, love, you've a visitor."

He sat up on the bed as the door opened, wondering why the ceremony. Roland and Kate had both been over and hadn't been presented at the door like royalty.

"Hello, son. Can I come in?" His mum leaned against the doorpost, foot slightly over the threshold in that way she'd always had to stop him keeping her out.

Wat's heart sped at the familiar gesture. He nodded. She came into the small room and sat on the end of the bed, perched on the edge as if ready to make a quick getaway. Viciously, Wat wondered if she thought he could spread gay germs all over her just by breathing. He clenched his jaw, waiting for her to make the first move. 

The silence, held so long it began to sag, was eventually broken as she said, "Looks cosy in here."

"Yeah." 

"June says you've settled in lovely."

"Yeah."

"That's good, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

She cast a half desperate look in his direction but Wat wasn't in the mood to go throwing her any ropes. If she wanted chitchat she could do all the work herself. It wasn't like Wat was on holiday, here.

"So…" Her skirt bunched under fingertips that clawed at her legs. "Wat, I'm sorry, I am. I should've…it was the shock you see. I didn't…But that's no excuse, is it? Your dad, he shouldn't…and I shouldn't have let him and it's…It's not easy, taking it on, what you said. About being…you know. But that's my problem, not yours, and I know it must have been hard for you and we made it worse. You have these ideas in your head, you see and it can be…but that's not what signing up to be a parent is. You're your own person first and my son second but it's hard to remember that sometimes.

"I love you so much, son. I do. And I can't say as I understand, but I'll try. I will."

Part of Wat wanted to throw his arms round her as if he were a little kid still. The other part of him, a stomach-churning mix of rejection and righteous fury, said, "Might be a start if you said it."

"Said what?"

"Gay, mum. I'm gay. I'm not 'you know'. How'm I supposed to think you're trying to understand if you can't even spit the word out?"

She flushed, snatching a quick glance at the door, but her hands flattened on her legs and she said, "Yes. You're right, of course. You're my son, Wat, and you're bright and fierce and handsome and stubborn as all get out and you're…you're gay. There. _There_." She reached out and grabbed one of his hands in hers, squeezing tight. "It's a start?"

Wat nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and squeezed back. They sat quietly together for a moment. Wat took a deep breath, psyching himself up to ask the question he knew could never be answered the way he wanted. 

"What about Dad?"

His mum covered their joined hands with her other one. "He's going to take some work," she said. "I know he misses you, but he won't say it. He's still so angry. And I know that he shouldn't be, but you know how he is. I'll work on him, I promise."

"Yeah?"

"He's your father, Wat. He does love you, no matter what he said."

"Got a funny way of showing it," Wat muttered, his brain mutinously suggesting where exactly he'd tell his dad to go even if he came round on his knees begging forgiveness.

"I know. Let me talk to him, eh?"

Wat pulled his hand away. "Don't put yourself out or nothing." 

He recognised himself in the tight set of his mum's jaw. She nodded and stood up.

"I'll leave you be," she said, adding nervously, "Can I pop in and see you soon? Or I could take you out for a coffee, if you like."

"Sure." Wat allowed himself to soften. She was making an effort after all, and what was there to gain from holding a grudge? That'd never been his way. "I'd like that, Mum."

The smile that broke from her was one Wat hadn't seen since he was a small child, since before John. It took over her whole face and made her beautiful. Wat knew that he'd put it there, her imperfect but alive son, and, for the first time he could remember, he felt the full force of her love. Wat stood and opened his arms for a hug, his mum folding herself round him and gripping him as tightly as she could. He hooked his chin over her shoulder and held on. She had never seemed so entirely present to him before. Always he'd had a sense that some part of her was distracted, was somewhere else, but right now she was completely in the room with him. 

It was ridiculous that it had taken nearly losing each other to realise that they'd never wholly had each other in the first place, but then it seemed that he was seeing a lot of things more clearly these days. And somehow, yet again, Geoff was there at the root of it, fiddling away at Wat's life without even knowing it. Who knew where Wat would have been if it hadn't been for a crashed bike and a conscience? Probably wondering why he could never get a girlfriend to stick and flirting with assault charges when his wayward temper got out of control. Maybe the broken heart was a price worth paying, after all.

Wat and his mum made plans for their next meeting and she left with more promises of making things better. Over the next few months she helped broker some sort of peace between Wat and his dad. Eventually they could have a meal together without awkwardness and Wat would pop round to watch their favourite shows. His dad came back to The Phoenix ("Take's back up again," said Uncle David. "Here, have an extra fiver, lad. Anyone else you want to reconcile with?") and later they even managed the odd fishing trip with no one there to act as buffer. They never talked about Wat's sexual preferences, though, and Wat supposed that was good enough. It's not like he wanted to hear about his dad's either.

He never moved home, despite his mum's urging, more comfortable being himself with his aunt and uncle. And if anyone had suggested that he just liked sleeping in the room where he'd had his first snog with his first boyfriend, then he would point out, with due force if necessary, exactly how they were completely in the wrong.

***

Wat told himself he was too busy with the pub, his friends and his family to think much about the contents of his pants and what his intentions were towards them. Besides, he might have been out and more-or-less proud to his nearest and dearest, but he was still under twenty-one and likely to get in trouble if he made eyes at the wrong sort. The reality of it was that he lugged Geoff around with him like some sort of persistent ghost, invisible chains dragging across his chest as if to remind him that he shouldn't even think about handing his heart over to anyone else. 

Little by little, though, the chains thinned, links weakening without Wat even noticing, and over time even the memories of Geoff, always vibrant, always in sharp colour, began to fade, slipping in between the leaves of tidily kept albums instead of scattered everywhere across Wat's thoughts. The time even came when Wat found himself calling up past times with Geoff, remembering them with pleasure, unsullied by the pain of how it all ended. It felt good.

Two years after he'd moved into the pub, Wat took himself off to the pictures to see this _Star Wars_ flick everyone was going so barmy about. He'd been supposed to meet Roland, but he'd been trapped into babysitting his sister instead, so Wat sat by himself at the back in an almost full theatre. Any awkwardness he felt was gone by the time the scrolling intro was halfway done. He settled in to watch. 

Then Han Solo happened. Rough-edged, cocky and too handsome for comfort. By the time Han shot Greedo, Wat had to wriggle quietly to adjust himself and by the time he got the Falcon away from the Death Star he was practically having to sit on his hands to prevent an embarrassing incident. He tried to concentrate on the screen but it was no good. He stood up, edging along the row, ignoring the muttered complaints and made a beeline for the gents. 

Cubicle door locked behind him, Wat fumbled at his fly button, pushing down his jeans the bare minimum it took to get a good hand on his dick. He sighed into the touch, closing his eyes to picture Han Solo fucking him over the control panel of the Falcon, stars streaming by at light speed. Afterwards, Wat blamed the heroics he'd been watching for the fact he didn't cut and run when he heard someone in the next cubicle let out a bitten-off moan. Eyes wide, he stilled and listened hard, instantly aware of the familiar sound of skin shifting over skin. Before he could talk himself out of it, Wat stroked himself again, pleasure shuddering through him. He tipped his head back and purposely drawled out, "Han."

A silence, and then, "Fuck, _yes_ ," from the unknown neighbour. The shared cubicle wall rattled with force and Wat replied, slamming his hand into it as he sped up. 

"I'm gonna…" said the bloke, finishing his sentence with an inarticulate groan.

Wat couldn't help but tumble after him into the stars of a galaxy far, far away. He cleaned himself up, wondering what the etiquette was in a situation like this. It wasn't like he was up on shared wanking protocol. Was he supposed to wait for the other bloke to go first because he'd come first? Were they supposed to slink out together, never making eye contact and vowing to avoid each other to the end of their days? What? He unlocked the door, listening for sounds from the other cubicle that might give him some kind of clue.

"I've got a sinking feeling we're going to die in some mutual shame spiral," said the voice from next door. "I don't make a habit of this, you know, I blame Han Solo."

"Yeah," said Wat, at the same time unnerved and intrigued by the bloke's attempts at turning this into a normal conversation. "He's got a lot to answer for. Handsome bastard."

"I'm Michael," said the voice. "Do you wanna do a count of three or something? The film'll end and then this place will be full of people wanting to crap and we'll be stuffed."

"Count of three works. I'm Wat."

"Like the Peasants' Revolt Wat?"

Wat's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah! Just like him."

"Cool. So, in three, two, one…"

Michael turned out to be about Wat's age. He was shorter than Wat, the top of his head level with Wat's eyes, broad-shouldered with close-cropped dark brown hair that was just waiting for its chance to curl and sideburns shaved to such a point that you could cut yourself simply by looking at them. His eyes were almost as dark as his hair with that faraway look of the recently orgasmed. His smile was wide and genuine and Wat liked him on sight.

"We could go back in. Catch the end," Wat said.

"Sure, sure. Or we could go back to mine and do more of what we just did only with borrowing hands off each other."

Wat almost bridled like one of those hoity toity ladies on his mum's soaps-- _You barely know me. What kind of girl do you think I am?_ \--but he pulled himself back. It had been a long time since he'd had anything but his own hand to play with, he was a grown man, not some princess locked up waiting for a prince to marry her before she'd be allowed to hop into bed with him, why the hell shouldn't he get himself well and truly fucked?

"You're on," he said. "Probably I'll see the end another time, 'cos, you know…"

Michael nodded. "Oh, yeah. Whole lot of knowing going on."

After three months of shagging, a few films and a sprinkling of, "hey, so, maybe we could, like, get a cup of coffee together or something," Wat had to admit to himself he was in possession of a boyfriend. Given Michael's terminal unemployment, he was always hanging round at the pub, so there'd even been the sheepish intros to his too-amused pseudo-parents. It was pretty great, actually. There wasn't any of that soul-crushing angst that had been woven right through the fabric of the him and Geoff thing, and it was…well, restful.

Restful wasn't to say there were no adventures, mind. Michael had Wat dressed to the nines (eights, maybe, nines might have been pushing it), onto the train into the city and into the pubs and clubs of Earls Court before Wat even knew what was happening. It was eye-opening to say the least, the uniforms of the clans: the leather men of The Coleherne with their colour-coded handkerchiefs, the denim at Copacabana, the drag queens at The Lord Ranelagh, even the druggies and rentboys at The Boltons. Wat had never been so openly desired before, so many sets of eyes raking him top-to-toe. It set his pulse racing and he couldn't help but puff his chest and strut. Michael only grinned and touched Wat's elbow with a hand, backing off all but the most eager.

The music was loud, the venues were dark and smelled of sweat, fresh and stale, and beer: the same. You couldn't get to the bar or the loo or to a small square of sticky carpet to call your own without being groped. No actual funny business, though. Michael explained to Wat that police raids were an inevitable part of most nights, pestering the peaceable folk spilled out onto the pavements, one more uniform mingling in with the rest.

"It's like they've got nothing better to do," he said, leaning close to Wat to be heard over the thumping bass. "Don't know why they're so concerned about what we do with our dicks. Jealous, I reckon, because their little truncheons have to be neatly tucked away until the wifeys agree to a personal interrogation."

"Nice." Wat shook his head. "So how do people…you know?"

"Hook up? There's a couple of guesthouses round here that'll turn a blind eye. Pick up an air steward and you'll find a spot at the Renfield, up on Cromwell Road. Mostly though, you see someone you fancy, you let 'em take you home."

"Risky, innit?"

Michael shrugged. "The things we do for love." He took the pint glass out of Wat's hand, setting it down on the narrow, wooden shelf that ran the length of the room. "Come on, let's dance."

They came back again a few times, but the economy insisted on staying deep in the toilet and Michael got increasingly restless at his inability to find a job.

"I'd do anything," he would say, despairing. "Sweep the streets. Clean the public loos, anything."

"Yeah, I know exactly what you'd be doing in those loos," Wat grinned, but the grin faded quickly to a frown. He knew how lucky he was to have steady work and it made him feel guilty every time Michael reported no joy from the Labour Exchange or dropped a paper with angrily crossed-out job ads on the bar. Where Wat would've torn down the world, Michael hunched in on himself, the hopelessness seeping into every crevice so that even his curls lay lank and flat. Wat might have enjoyed having a boyfriend at his beck and call, but not like this.

He looked at Michael, the familiarity of him spreading warm affection across Wat. He shook it off, unhelpful as it was for what he needed to say.

"You know when we was at the pictures last week?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember that army film?"

"Yeah?"

"I thought, maybe…I thought you like fixing things and they had those mechanicy engineer people and it's a wage, isn't it? Well, it's a salary and that's better and they were all over, too. Even the Arctic and you've got that weird thing about polar bears." He petered out, Michael's gaze fixed steadily on him.

"Are you saying I should join up?"

Wat broke eye contact. "I hate seeing you like this, is all," he muttered.

"Is this your way of breaking up with me?"

"No! Why would you say that?"

"Because you've made it pretty fucking clear how you feel about long distance relationships, dickhead. If I go all soldier boy, you and me go kaput. And it's not like I could disagree because wandering into the army with a steady boyfriend wouldn't exactly help me win friends and influence people now, would it?"

Wat took a deep breath. "I know. But…Look, Michael, this has been great, you and me, and if you stick around it'll still be great, but if I thought of a way to get you sorted and didn't tell you for my benefit, I'd be every bit the dickhead you called me. More even." He chewed the inside of his lip. "So join up, don't join up, but there's another choice that's not letting the wankers fucking up this country slow torture you to death by boredom. Fast blow you up to death, prob'ly, in some—what do they call it?-- _skirmish_ , but hey."

Michael laughed, running his hand through his hair so that curls sprang up all willy-nilly. Wat resisted the temptation to smooth them down. 

"I'll look into it," he said. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Wat almost meant it.

"Guess if I might get deployed any second we should definitely make the most of the time we've got left."

Wat snapped to attention, saluting. "Yes, sir!"

The day Michael reported for basic training, Wat, Roland and Kate, visiting from uni, saw him off, singing, "Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye," until his taxi disappeared from view.

"All right?" Roland asked.

Wat took stock. There'd been no declarations of love, no last minute weeping or "wait for me's", just a mutual understanding that some things came with an expiration date, a night of pretty damn spectacular sex and a manly hug goodbye. Was he going to miss Michael? Sure. Wat had loved him right enough, if only for dragging Wat back into the world and reminding him of how colourful it could be. He wasn't left heartsore, though; maybe he was too grateful for that.

He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"You sure?" Kate took his arm as they started off down the road.

He nodded again. "Got that catering course starting, haven't I? No time for a bloke. Good thing he's off and away."

"Really?"

Wat squeezed Kate's hand against his side. "Nah. Not good, exactly. But not bad either."

"You make less sense than usual," said Roland, but Kate just leaned her head briefly against Wat's shoulder and they walked on.

***


	10. Chapter 10

Just as he'd known it would, the world kept right on turning. A combination of circumstances kept Wat too busy to give much thought to starting a new relationship, but he never felt like he was missing out. If the urge took him, he'd go up to the clubs and pubs of Earls Court and fuck total strangers in alleys, in bedsits, in upmarket flats, stumbling home on the milk train in the early dawn. If anyone had pointed out that these days he had a preference for dark hair, he'd've said he never noticed. Mostly, though, he worked, hung out with Roland and his tiny nuclear family, and wrote rambling letters to Kate up in Scotland, working on dragging oil out of the North Sea. 

By the time he was twenty-five Wat was a godfather, a boss, and couldn't remember the last time he'd used his fists for anything more violent than opening a tricky barrel. Say anything bad about his cooking, mind, and he'd still happily serve up a mouthful of abuse with a nice side salad.

It was late summer, hovering on that thin slice of time between last night and tomorrow morning, Wat shoved naked against a wardrobe with a beautiful man he'd picked up at the Copacabana on his knees before him. The soft lamplight sheened the sweat on muscled arms, making the skin glow. Wat couldn't take his eyes off it. Maybe the bloke was magic; his mouth definitely was. His reverie was broken as the front door slammed, Wat tensing instinctively.

The man—Wat wanted to call him Dan, but it could be Don, or Den, or something completely different so it wasn't worth the risk—pulled off long enough to say, "That's just my flatmate, don't worry," and then got right back to it. Wat bit back the groan that was threatening to escape because don't worry didn't mean go on and advertise your fucking, why don't you? and pushed his hips forward.

The door was flung open, a tall figure breezing through it with a loud, "Don!" (Oh, it was Don.) "You'll never guess who I-"

Later, Wat would blame the short-circuiting of near orgasm for taking more than a split second to recognise the man who broke his heart, but now, as the unfinished sentenced faded into mid-air, he focused his wayward attention on the speaker, and the flush of arousal was immediately swept away by a far stronger tide of anger. Geoff. _Geoff_.

"Wat!"

The man—Don, call him Don—was off Wat and on his feet in one swift motion. "Are you kidding me? _That_ Wat?"

Only neither Geoff nor Wat answered, eyes locked on each other for the first time in eight years.

"Of all the cocks in all the world!" Out of the corner of his eye, Wat saw Don shrug. "I'll go and make tea," he said, gently pushing Geoff out of the way to reach a flowery robe hooked on the back of the door. He left without another word.

Geoff's warm gaze resting on him, Wat started to become aware exactly how naked he was. His cheeks burned. He stalked round the room, picking up his clothes with as much dignity as he could muster, though far less than he'd've liked. Geoff leaned against the doorjamb, tracking him, a smirk on his face. Wat wanted to punch it off him so much. Unfortunately, he couldn't make fists and get dressed at the same time. Neither of them spoke. Eventually, pulling his t-shirt down, Wat tugged at the hem, not looking up. He said, "What's he mean, _that_ Wat?" 

"I may have talked about you once or twice. Hello, by the way."

"Yeah, yeah, fancy meeting you here and all that." Wat glared at him. "Surprised you remembered."

"You split up with me, Wat. I read the letter." 

"Yeah? You left me first and you know it."

Geoff took a step forward, reaching for Wat's arm. Wat ducked out of the way and Geoff's hand fell back to his side. 

"I'm sorry." 

"Not good enough."

"Look, sit, will you? Let me try to explain, at least."

Wat clenched his jaw, angry at his sudden desperation to hear what Geoff had to say. It shouldn't matter. It was ancient history. He'd gone all this time not knowing, why change that now? Shouldn't he be past this? And yet he sat. Balancing on the edge of Don's bed closest to the door ready to make a quick escape, but he sat nonetheless. Geoff nodded and sat down, too. Not too close to touch and not too far away to reach, Wat observed.

"Well?"

Geoff let out a long breath. "I won't do you the disservice of saying that you wouldn't know what it was like, because of course you did. I knew that. But, Wat, I missed you so much. It was unbearable those first few days, knowing you were so close but you might as well have been on the moon. I couldn't see past you. I…couldn't. My initial solution, ill thought through as it was, was to drink. And, trust me, I mean good old-fashioned blackout drunk. The kind my mother was so thoughtful as to let me witness on occasion. If I was too drunk to remember my own name, I was drunk enough not to think about you. But I was already starting to screw up and I knew it wouldn't do.

"I needed to knuckle down, you see. I couldn't slink home a failure, not even if it meant you. Especially not then. You didn't deserve someone who couldn't hack it in the real world. We weren't Romeo and Juliet, we were Wat and Geoff and we were better than that. And so I taught myself to compartmentalise. Home was you, college was not."

Wat snorted. "Glad that was so easy for you."

"It wasn't." Geoff shook his head. "It was awful. I threw myself into everything I could find, study, socialising, clubs. The more involved I was, the less I had time spare to stop you escaping from the room I'd fashioned for you. I told you—didn't I?—that I'd started going to Socialist Worker meetings. Well, International Socialists as they were back then. This boy, Ed, straight, northern, chip on his shoulder so big you could see it from space and persuasive as hell dragged me into a meeting one day. He introduced me to Mary Beth—tiny, fierce force for change—and I was hooked.

Wat's stomach squeezed and his face must have told Geoff a story because he hastened to add, "Not in that way. Not then."

"But you and I still had our phone calls and I'd feel sick with nerves every time and then it only took hearing your voice to shatter all the good I'd done in building my life and I'd have to fight myself for hours and hours after hanging up not to simply head straight to the train station. It was too hard, Wat. Too horribly hard. And I thought…I told myself…maybe I have feelings for Mary Beth and it didn't occur to me that she was you all over again, even down to the red hair. 

"So I kept on distancing myself and, yes, I was an atrocious coward avoiding you at Christmas." He twisted his body towards Wat, reaching out to lay a hand on Wat's upper arm. "I know it sounds like nothing now, but I thought it would be easier for both of us."

Wat shoved the hand away from him. "It wasn't."

"I know." Geoff stared down at the hand Wat had rejected for a moment, then looked straight at him, expression entirely open, and it might have been eight years but Wat could still read the truth in his face. He turned his head away, not ready to see it, not ready to forgive.

"When I…" Geoff cleared his throat. "When I read your letter I…It sounds like a shocking piece of hyperbole, but it seemed to me as if a hole was punched in my heart. It literally felled me to the floor and I couldn't for the life of me remember how I was supposed to stand up." He let out a bitter laugh. "You would have shaken your head at such histrionics, I know. Told me to pull myself together and get up, man. I think perhaps it was everything I'd hidden from myself all those weeks rushing back to ambush me and I wanted to take it all back, Wat, I did. I wanted to run straight to you and beg forgiveness like some awful romantic cliché."

"But you didn't."

"But I didn't. I couldn't. I couldn't face going through it all again. Nothing had changed, after all. I told you I was a coward and I meant it. I screwed up the letter and threw it away and told myself I could do that with my feelings, screw them up and push them so far down into the dark I'd never find them even if I wanted to. I told myself your letter meant you were better off without me and then I simply refused to think about it.

"So I took my clean laundry and went back to college, slipped into some sort of indefinable relationship with Mary Beth and found a cause to put my passion into. It was safer that way."

There was nothing to say to that, not really, Wat knew better than most how it was easier to repress emotions than let yourself feel them. He wasn't hypocrite enough to deny that. But he was still riddled with thorns and here was the opportunity to pull one out. He took it. "What about that lad?"

"A little more context, if you please."

"That first summer. I saw you. With a lad looked like Iggy Pop. Pair of you looked very cosy, as I recall." He gave Geoff a sidelong glance to see a puzzled expression clear to be swiftly replaced by something unrecognizable. 

"Oh! You saw…that was Ed. The chippy northerner I told you about. We weren't…You should have come over to say hello."

"I should've…? Did they scoop your brains out at your poncey college, then?"

"No. No, of course. No. I'm sorry. Again." 

Silence fell for an uncomfortable moment and Wat took the opportunity to scope Geoff out with surreptitious glances. He was still the same lanky git, but broader in the shoulders now, neatly dressed in a tailored suit with drainpipe trousers, blond hair cut short in the style made fashionable by Paul Weller. From glam kid to mod? How did that even work, Wat wondered, ignoring the tremors in his guts. Geoff was a pretty boy, even now, stood to reason Wat would show some appreciation for that, no matter how much that face needed a smack.

"So," said Geoff, breaking the silence with the slap of his palm against his thigh, "How are things with you?"

Wat's first instinct was to tell him to naff the fuck off it was none of his twatting business, but he swallowed it down. If he could be polite to the know-nothing customers who sent back his perfectly cooked food, he could manage to hold it together with his ex. "I'm running the pub with my auntie," he said instead. "Uncle David had a stroke three years back and he can't manage much these days so they let me loose. We've got food on now, too. Doing pretty well, if I do say so myself."

"That sounds wonderful! Apart from the stroke, of course. I'm sorry to hear that."

"You didn't block the artery, did you? What about you?"

"I'm at _The Statesman_ , working in features."

"Yeah? What's that mean?"

"It means I get paid to ramble on. I like it. I rather fell on my feet, actually. Met some people through volunteering with my SWP comrades at Rock against Racism, stayed in contact and waved my previous journalistic credentials—you will, of course, remember my elite skills of photocopier breaking and tea making—in the air and there I was. Barring the years of scrambling up the ladder, obviously, but it sounds so much more impressive if we skip that part."

Wat's eyes had been widening throughout this speech. "Wait, wait, wait. Your _comrades_? College meetings is one thing, but where d'you learn to be a bloody pinko, posh boy?"

Geoff was perfectly serious as he replied. "From you."

"Bollocks!"

"I tried, Wat. I didn't forget what you taught me."

"I didn't teach you nothing."

"You did. You did. You opened my eyes to so much more than I'd ever seen. It would have been so easy to close them again in my safe little college cocoon. Go to the right parties, drink the right champagne, schmooze the right people, go and work at the BBC and spend my life in a gentleman's club with my backside firmly moulded into a leather wingback armchair. But I didn't. I may have lost you, but I didn't lose the person you'd helped me become, you see? It was too important to me."

Another silence stretched between them as Wat fought against the sudden swelling in his throat. Geoff broke it again, asking with exaggerated innocence, "I take it from your, ah, assignation with Don tonight that you're not currently attached?"

"Was attached to his mouth till you went and ruined it," Wat muttered under his breath, startling a laugh out of Geoff and an answering one from himself. For the first time since Geoff had waltzed through the door he felt the tiniest part of himself relax.

"I'm told Don is something of an expert in the old fellatio provision."

"You never?"

"No. I don't—how does Don put it so charmingly?—shit where I eat." Geoff grinned, the smile fading as swiftly as it arrived. "It seems I'm not built for casual encounters and I…" He folded and unfolded his arms, looking away. "I lost someone I was very fond of a little over a year ago. I haven't…"

Wat bit back the impulse to reach out and pull Geoff into a hug. He and loss were old friends, after all. "I'm sorry," he said. "Feels like the wrong person woke up sometimes, don't it?"

Geoff's head jerked back round, his eyes searching Wat's face. "You understand. Of _course_ you do."

"How'd they…? If you don't mind me asking?"

"Die?" Geoff's tone was brisk. "No, I don't mind. The clinical diagnosis was complications due to a combination of pneumocystic pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma. I believe our American cousins call it GRID. It seems to be taking quite a hold there amongst our, ah, community. Tommy was a Yank himself and the doctors informed me he would in all likelihood have picked it up there on a visit home. Presumably whilst he was fucking someone who wasn't me."

"Shit, _Geoff_."

Geoff gave a tight smile. "You give a little love and it all comes back to you. Of course, Bugsy and Co were thinking of a whole different kind of loving." He cocked his head to one side. "Though they did have those splurge guns. Covered in cream, indeed."

He'd always been good at deflecting, had Geoff, Wat thought. Right up to the moment he truth-bombed the living daylights out of you. Almost without thinking, he squared his shoulders, waiting for the other shoe to drop and drop hard. He didn't have to wait long.

"Look, Wat, it's good to see you, but you should know something now: I don't want to be friends with you."

Wat blinked, hardly able to react. "Huh?"

"I know it's been years—eight long years—but I look at you…I look at your face that I missed so badly, furious scowl and all, and I can't think of anything else but kissing you."

And there it was: the gut twisting terror of the Geoffrey Chaucer rollercoaster ride. Wat hadn't missed that part one bit. "Stop it," he said, shaking his head with violent fervour. "We were kids then. We're not now."

"Don't you feel it?"

Geoff reached out towards him again and Wat dodged away. "So what? I've managed without you this long, haven't I? Managed bloody well, all things considered, so you can just shove off."

"Is managing good enough? Is that all you want for yourself, Wat? Don't you want the chance for more? To be happy, to know that everything in your world is in its right place again? I know I do. And I know that I might not deserve it, but surely you do?"

Wat clenched his jaw in mulish refusal.

"No? Truly?" Geoff's shoulders slumped so briefly Wat would have missed it if every ounce of his attention hadn't already been fixed on him. Then he grinned, sly and inviting. "Well, then, why not one kiss for old time's sake?"

Wat wanted to keep on refusing, to get up and leg it as far and as fast as he could, but his stupid feet refused to co-operate, planted solidly against the floor. Geoff moved closer and Wat didn't stop him. He leaned in and Wat didn't stop that either.

Even before their lips touched, Wat could feel the rise and rise of the gaggle of geese in his stomach and he was dizzied by it. The kiss was everything he'd forgotten and everything he'd remembered and more, with years layered on top of it as if they could know each other again by the way their mouths relearned to fit together. He lost himself in it and was only brought back by the light fall of Geoff's fingers against his cheek. He jerked back, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm, furious that he'd even let it get this far.

"See?" Geoff's hand fell, but only as far as Wat's wrist, thumb rolling lightly over it.

Wat did see, but he saw further than his dick, always had. "Don't matter if we're still hot for each other—that's not what makes it work between two people. Gotta have trust, don't you? You've got no idea, you, how rough it was for me when we finished. What I had to go through to find my own version of normal again. To remember how to _breathe_ , even. Why the fuck would I ever go opening myself up for that again with you? Once bitten and that, Geoff. Come on."

Just then, the door opened and Don sashayed through with two mugs of tea in his hand. 

"Tea for two!" he carolled and then stopped a mere couple of steps into the room. 

"Okay, then," he said, surveying the tableau in front of him. Wat could only imagine how they looked, kiss-dazed and angry, Geoff's grasp half-restraint, half-caress. Don started backing out of the room. "All the more tea for me, darlings! Also, possibly consider taking this to your own room, Geoffrey, my love. I may be up the rest of the night pissing out all this delicious Earl Grey, but I'd rather stagger thither and yon from the comfort of my own bed."

The door closed behind him and Wat and Geoff exchanged glances, grinning in shared amusement. Again, Wat felt a little of his rage receding. It was too easy to fall back into old patterns.

"I'm sorry. I really am. I was so wrapped up in protecting myself I let you fall away. I let you down, and I shouldn't have. Please, Wat. Let me come home. We can just spend time together. I promise there'll be no pressure for anything more. I know I said I didn't want to be friends, but if that's all you're willing to offer me I'll take it and be glad, too."

It was a simple, heartfelt speech and Wat's heart thumped hard against his chest. There were so many good reasons to give him a flat no. So many, and yet the same pull that had always been there since they'd first crashed into each others' lives was hauling him back in again. They'd been friends first, he told himself. They could be friends again. Safe enough, right?

"A month."

"What?"

If not good sense, Wat had most definitely learned caution over the years. "We've not seen each other in eight years and we're still alive and making a good go of things, aren't we? One month more won't hurt. You get back to your life and see if it makes any difference that I came back in it. If you still feel like you say you do one month from today, three pm, call me. I'll be at The Phoenix. It's a one-chance deal, Chaucer. That's it."

"I'll call."

Wat refused to give in to optimism. "Yeah, we'll see. "

Geoff turned Wat's wrist over, tracing along it with a soft fingertip. "You picked the scab, didn't you?" he said, chiding. "I warned you there'd be a scar."

"Yeah? You should see my insides," Wat retorted, immediately regretting it as Geoff winced.

He tugged his wrist away, getting to his finally co-operative feet. If Wat were to choose this moment to be totally honest with himself, he would have admitted that what he really wanted was to kiss Geoff one more time. He'd never got the chance the last time to know it was that: the last. But he refused to give in to the notion and instead collected his shoes, whatever was left of his dignity and left without a backwards glance.

***

Wat was so sure that he'd breeze through the next month like he'd breezed through the last who-knew-the-twelve-times-table-anyway-how-many. So the next thirty days were Geoff-free, how was that new? He'd just not think about it—go back to the old ways, it seemed—and everything would go swimmingly along. He started well enough, planning menu changes and costing out potential renovations to Auntie June's mild consternation at this sudden burst of energy. As the days passed, he found himself increasingly jittery and short-tempered, blaming it on the unreasonable temperatures of the summer. By the time he'd reduced a brewery rep—an unassuming, gaunt-faced gentleman close to retirement—to tears, his aunt had had enough. 

"That's it!" she yelled. "One more word passes your lips that isn't sweetness and light and I'll tan your hide, nephew mine, grown man or no."

Wat skipped out of the reach of her swiping hand. "You'll never," he grinned. "Am I being a bit of a wazzock?"

"No, love. No, you're not."

"Well, that's okay th-"

"You're being a lot of one!" She flicked him with a tea towel.

"Ow!" 

"That's for Ernie." She flicked him again.

" _Ow!_ "

"And that's for me having to put up with your shite." She draped the tea towel over her shoulder. "Anything you need to share?"

"Shrewd as ever, you. No. Maybe. But not yet, okay?"

Auntie June narrowed her eyes. "Hmm. You know where to find me, love."

"I do."

"And if it's anything to do with upsetting the staff or suppliers it'll be behind you with my foot up your arse."

Wat backed away, hands raised in surrender. "I get it, I get it!"

Even with all of this going on, Wat wasn't aware how invested he was in Geoff's phone call until 2 p.m. hit on the arranged date. Each second that passed was torture, as if every tick of the hand on the clock was dragging at Wat's guts. He'd arranged to be off shift and was sitting upstairs in the main room of the flat, newspaper casually laid over his lap. He'd read the same paragraph over and over again and still had no clue what it was all about. Something to do with contraceptives for kids, he thought, but that couldn't be right. He reapplied himself to the article, but again his brain slid off it and he gave up, attempting to fold the paper away. None of the creases lined up right and Wat found himself shaking the paper at arm's length and demanding it tell him why it was choosing today, of all days, to fuck with him. He flung it into the corner of the room with a wild yell and then threw himself back on the sofa, punching himself in the arm for being such an idiot.

It didn't help. By ten to three, he started inventing doom scenarios. Geoff had his arms cut off in some freak journalistic accident and couldn't dial his number. All the phone exchanges in the South East had gone down (he snatched up the phone and checked for the dial tone for that one). Geoff was being held captive by Don, who was jealous that Geoff might get to finish what he'd started. 

He'd had the month Wat gave him and realised he didn't care.

That last one knocked the wind right out of him and he almost didn't respond when the phone rang.

Almost.

Looking at the clock, he picked up the receiver before it had rung ten times. It was five to three.

"You're early," he said.

Geoff's voice, warm and crackly, said, "I got tired of being late. It never worked out well for me."

Wat didn't answer, standing with the phone cord wrapped tightly round one finger, his heart beating so fast, so hard he could feel it in his throat, in his toes. The geese were already in full flight. There was no holding them back now. 

"Wat? Are you there?"

"Yeah," said Wat. "Yeah, I am." He wound the cord tighter, the tip of his finger turning white. It was time. It was stupid, it was impulsive, it was time. "Geoff?"

"Yes, Wat?"

"Come home."

"Funny you should say that. Come outside." The line went dead.

Wat slammed the receiver down, cursing the cord as he yanked it off his finger as fast as he could. He ran down the stairs, scattering the afternoon clientele as he crashed out through the doors. There, opposite the pub, narrow red tie matching the colour of the phone box he leant against, was Geoff, looking at Wat as if he were the answer to every question he'd ever asked and some he hadn't even thought of yet. How exactly was he supposed to resist that?

And so Wat looked left, then right, then left again, and stepped out into the road.


End file.
